b'Derech – on the way
by WriteShop
Summary: Six years after the Holy grail war, Shirou has gotten sucked into an alternate universe, one which will give him a second chance to be a hero. But is being a hero the only thing he desires, or has his experience changed him? Fate Stay Night / Avengers (movie) crossover.
1. Chapter 1

b'Derech – on the way

Six years after the Holy grail war, Shirou has gotten sucked into an alternate universe, one which will give him a second chance to be a hero. But is being a hero the only thing he desires, or has his experience changed him? Fate Stay Night / Avengers (movie) crossover.

Final installment of the FSN: No Route trilogy

STORY Start

.

Nick Fury got out of the Humvee as the driver pulled through the gate of Area 54, "So what's going on here, Private?" He barked at the soldier standing guard outside cinder block building. Except for the cluster of featureless buildings surrounded by barbed wire fencing, there was nothing in sight out to the distant horizon. Those, plus a few dry tumbleweeds, just to drive the desolation home.

"Sir." The soldier snapped to attention, "I don't know, sir. Dr. Selvig said to expect you. Sir."

Fury nodded and went in. He hadn't expected for the private to know anything, but that was his way of making conversation. He figured it made the men serving under him feel more comfortable. (For the record, he was wrong).

Inside, the building was one giant lab. On the left side of the room there were a bunch of smaller experiments running based on the data collected in the other half. And that other half consisted of an array of sensors surrounding a crystalline 'something'. At first glance it was a cube, but on closer inspection it had too many sides, some of which were somehow inside each other.

It was the Tesseract.

"Ah, Director Fury, great to see you." The speaker was a gray haired scientist type - Dr. Erik Selvig, directory of this laboratory. "I know you are planning to come by for a tour with your staff next week, but since you are on base now anyway, I thought you might want to take a look at this. 'Tessie' is acting very strangely – energy is coming off of it in ripples." He walked up the the Tesseract and peered at it for a moment before turning back to Nick Fury, gesturing to it with the sort of pride usually reserved for your child's first steps. "Oh, it's not dangerous or anything. It does this once every few weeks. But it would be a shame if you come next week and Tessie just sat there. You should see what the government's money is paying for."

Nick gave a thin smile at the scientist's loquaciousness. "And what does it pay for?" He stepped up to peer at 'Tessie' as the good doctor affectionately called it. He had to take care not to get in the way of a bevy of lab techs who were wheeling over a cart with some jury-rigged instrument attached to a PC.

"Why, we record the Tesseract emanations across the entire spectrum, and we correlate with any known stimuli. We know that some low frequency sounds will make Tessie emit light, for instance, but we are still uncertain what is causing the other phenomena that we have seen, such as these ripples."

All of a sudden, the Tesseract began to throb, and gave off an unpleasant keening sound.

"Is this normal?" Fury stepped back from the device.

The sound grew louder.

"No, it's not," replied one of the techs, surreptitiously taking shelter behind a rack of computer equipment.

"Oh, dear," Dr Selvig was debating hitting the evacuate button when the keening turned into a wail and a ripple formed in the air, at shoulder height.

THUMP.

Everything stopped.

Nick drew his side arm as he ran to the other side of the Tesseract. Sitting on the floor where he had landed, butt first, was a young man.

He looked very confused. He glanced first at Nick, then the Tesseract. When his eyes made contact with the alien object he jerked as if touching a live wire and passed out cold.

Nick grabbed his radio, "Command and Control, I need an Alpha team to Lab T, Area 54, stat."

/\ b'D /\

Shirou opened his eyes. His head hurt. His memories were all jumbled up – he remembered fighting against a tide of zombies, then a tornado. Rin smiling at him, then flashes of light and after that he had a vague memory of something that overwhelmed his mind, and now... He looked around. He appeared to be in a hospital room. It looked very modern, so that ruled out most of Africa, where he had spent the past several years.

A nurse walked in and checked the tablet attached to his bed. When she saw that his eyes were open, she gabbled something, gave him a smile and walked of, calling out down the corridor.

_'__T__hat sounded like __E__n__g__lish?'_ Shirou's brain started to make connections between reality and memory.

A few moments later the nurse returned, followed by a doctor and an intense looking blond haired man in street clothes. Despite the clothing, his entire posture screamed 'military'.

"Hello, do you know who you are?" The doctor asked.

That confirmed it – something had gone majorly FUBAR if the doctor was leading with that question, instead of the usual 'how are you feeling?' (yes, Shirou had sufficient experience with the doctor / patient interaction to know what was normal).

"I'm feeling ok," he managed to shape the words in stilted English. He was fluent in a half dozen languages, but right now he could barely string a few words together – his brain was still trying to deal with whatever had almost fried his mind.

The blond haired man crouched down by the bed, "That's good, but the question was 'do you know who you are?' Because we have no idea." After a pause, he continued, "I'm Steve Rogers, incidentally."

Shirou nodded, "Leblanc. Emile Leblanc." He was too tired to do the accent correctly, but maybe they wouldn't notice that a Frenchman had a Japanese accent.

Steve nodded, "Good. Given how you arrived, we were worried that you wouldn't speak English. Or any known language." The doctor tapped Steve's shoulder, and the larger man nodded to him, "Why don't you get some rest, and when you are up for it, the doctor will contact me to help you with your orientation."

"I'm fine now." Shirou activated his mage circuits and pulled a little prana into his body. It wasn't the same as an actual healing spell, but it would give his body a boost. And he did feel fine, except for being tired and the 'something' in his mind that he couldn't recall. He was surprised at how remarkably easy it was to draw in the Prana – like standing on a lei line, except without the out of control sensation of sipping from a fire hose.

Steve looked up at the doctor. The doctor shrugged. "Except some bruises, there is nothing physically wrong with Mr. Leblanc. And the full spectrum pathogen workup came back negative. So he's free to move about."

"Well, the long and the short of it is, Mr. Leblanc, you may be in a different world – a different reality than you started out in." Steve paused, but when Shirou didn't make any denials or appear panicked, he continued. "You appeared out of thin air in a laboratory in the American Midwest, you have been brought here, to the CDC Bio-hazard center in Maryland."

"Do you have coffee in this world?"

Steve gave the stoic visitor a once over. He wasn't intensely muscled, but he appeared to be in good shape. And he had the poise of somebody who had gone through the storm and passed out the other side.

"Get dressed. Your civvies are over there."

[[Yesterday]]

There was a knock on the apartment door. Steve opened it to find Nick Fury looming on his doorstep. "How do you do? Come in."

Nick stepped into the apartment, "Nice place you got here. I like how you decorated it." He walked in and set to pacing around the living room like he owned it. The apartment was small but comfortable, with a separate living room complete with a sofa and a recliner bracketing a low table. Nick stopped behind the the recliner and inspected the book case decorously filled with a mixture of books and knick knacks.

"The army gave me a fully furnished unit." Steve replied, "I have no idea where to even shop for things in this new world. It's all catalog orders. How can people buy furnishings without first seeing them?" Steve walked into the kitchenette, "You want a beer?"

"No, thank you. I'm on duty."

Steve stopped immediately, his ears perking up, "So I can assume that this isn't a social call?"

"No," Nick turned to face Steve again. "We just had a guy appear from thin air at a top secret research facility and pass out. He does not appear to be a threat, but we aren't certain where he came from. We aren't even certain if he's from our world. I bought him here to have the CDC check him over, make sure he's not carrying any alien plague or anything. But once he regains consciousness, I want you to liaise with him."

Steve nodded, "Makes sense. I just arrived from the past, so I have first hand experience about how disorienting that an be." He had been at loose ends for the past several months. Once he had gotten cleared by the military, he had moved out here, but other than helping train some special forces (and sneaking out at night to fight petty crime), he wasn't doing anything, and he was getting bored. Steve was the sort that always needed to be working at 100% of his potential.

"Not just that. When the doctors were giving him a physical, they found his body was covered in scars, many of them from bullet wounds." Nick paused, before adding, "And some of them were overlapping. Meaning they didn't happen at the same time. This guy is a warrior."

[[now]]

"Do we have to stay in the hospital? I want to see how this world is different from my own." Shirou and Steve Rogers were in the hospital cafeteria, drinking coffee. Shirou appeared relaxed, but he remained watchful: this Steve Rogers was obviously a guard to make sure he didn't escape or cause trouble. Or maybe he was just there to evaluate him (except he wasn't subtle enough for that – he kept making it obvious that he was military). Shirou tried surreptitiously drawing on his magic and projecting a knife. It was ridiculously easy. He barely had to think of doing it, and it was there. A small smile quirked up his mouth.

Life just got easier.

Steve shrugged, "I don't see why we can't take a walk. And the coffee here is truly awful." As they headed out through the lobby, he added, "You have accepted that you are in a new world pretty calmly. Has this sort of thing happened to you before?"

Shirou considered how to reply, "No. But you're pretty calm about the fact that I might be from another world. Has this sort of thing happened to you before?"

Steve snorted. His sense of humor was vestigial, but this Emile seemed very much in tune with him. He carried himself with the bearing of a soldier, and he had a seriousness about him of somebody who was always trying to do more. "No, but there are reports that Thor, the Norse god of thunder, paid us a visit not too long ago. And I was chosen to show you around because I was frozen in suspended animation for 70 years. So it's not completely a foreign concept." The two of them walked down the street to a Starbucks.

Shirou was somewhat surprised at how casually Steve was treating his security. Or maybe he was just that good.

The hospital was in a downtown area, and there was lots of foot traffic swirling around despite the city center looking grungy and run down. Shirou craned his neck left and right, gawking "Well, so far this world seems fairly similar to mine. There is a Starbucks on every corner." If he had to flee, there was plenty of cover, but the danger of a civilian getting caught in the crossfire was high. Shirou glanced a Steve. Not that his captor was carrying a gun or any other obvious weapon.

"Are you certain that it's not? Yours, I mean," Steve asked as they ordered their drinks. The coffee bar was mostly empty at this time of day.

Shirou shook his head, "No. The.. air feels different." Shirou wasn't certain how open magic was here. Steve seemed very accepting of magical phenomena, but that didn't mean that Shirou was going to completely abandon caution. This was an unknown world, after all. "Incidentally, was there a woman that arrived at the same time as I did?" He changed the topic to something that had been churning at the back of his head for a while. He didn't want to talk about Rin until he knew more, but he couldn't stand the idea of just ignoring her when she might need his help. She really wasn't as tough as she pretended.

"No, should there have been?" Steve looked out the window as a convoy of cars crawled down the street. It was a pair of military issue Range Rovers bracketing an ambulance – not the sort of thing you typically saw. Just as he was looking away, one of the Ranger Rovers exploded, showering the area with shrapnel and shattering the window in front of them. The back of a parked truck swung open and a bunch of men in what looked like yellow hazmat suits poured out, firing semiautomatic rifles.

"Excuse me," Steve recovered, grabbing a serving tray off of the neighboring table and whipping it at the closest goon so fast that it knocked him unconscious when it hit his head. He then followed the tray, jumping out the broken window and leaping to engage the terrorists.

'_So much for being a captor,'_ Shirou watched as Steve went through the attackers like they were store mannequins._ '__His technique is pretty good.'_ Shirou noticed that despite the danger that he was facing, Steve was taking care to disable the enemy, rather than kill. The former would-be hero didn't want to get involved – he still wasn't certain what this world was all about – but he was liking it more and more. This Mr. Rogers was definitely his sort of guy. He could feel a smile try to pull at the corners of his mouth for the first time in weeks (that time when he was chatting with Rin didn't count). He quickly squashed it back down.

But then a van slammed around the corner, spilling out several more mooks, and one of these was wielding a large weapon that looked like it had came straight out of science fiction. Or maybe it was a particularly Rube Goldberg-ish Mystic Code. When the terrorist fired it, a cone of blue light enveloped everybody in front of him, causing them to stagger and fall to their knees. Some vomited.

"Ah, shit." Shirou stepped up to the window and projected a bow and Tora-shinai, which he promptly reshaped into an arrow. He almost casually shot the goon with the gun, and quickly repeated the process to take out the second. It all happened in under a second. The driver panicked, leaping back into his van. As he slammed on the gas to crash through the people blocking his escape, Shirou ran forward, projecting Kanshou and Bakuya and throwing them through the van's engine compartment. The motor sputtered and died, leaking fluids all over as the van slid to a halt. While the driver desperately yanked on the wheel of the now unresponsive vehicle, another Tora-shinai arrow smashed through the windshield and hit him in the chest.

Shirou had never tried reshaping a shinai into an arrow before, but with the ridiculous amount of mana available on this Earth, he had easily brute-forced the transformation.

It was all over in a matter of moments. The police arrived, and under the direction of the surviving FBI agents (for that was who had been driving the Range Rovers), arrested the A.I.M. terrorists.

"That was a nifty trick," Steve nodded towards the terrorists that had been hit by Shirou's arrows. They were raving in terror about a giant tiger that was going to eat them. "How long will that last?"

"It should wear off in about an hour. You're pretty good at this yourself."

"Thanks," Steve nodded, "Let's go see if our coffee is ready."


	2. Chapter 2

"Warning, evacuate Tesseract lab. Warning evacuate Tesseract lab."

"Agent Coulson, what on Earth is going on here?" Fury marched in. He had just arrived back at the facility for his scheduled inspection tour when the alarms had all gone off again, and the security detail stationed at Area 54 were in the process of a lock down.

If they were having weekly safety breaches here, he was going to ream somebody a new orifice.

"Sir," Phil Coulson saluted quickly before falling into step with his superior, "the Tesseract object is drawing energy from.. somewhere. The scientist either don't know, or they can't explain from where. It apparently has been acting funny for a couple of weeks now, but this is spiking the readings off of the charts."

"Get the Phase Two equipment out of here."

"Sir, are you certain that is the correct use of resources?" There were still a lot of people to evacuate, and the trucks would get in the way.

"We need Phase Two. As long as the world hasn't ended, that's your priority."

"Yes, sir."

Fury pushed past the scientists and technicians streaming in the other direction "Dr. Selvig, I need a report. Last week, you said 'Tessie' was 'acting up a little'. Now this. Care to explain?"

"Last week was a slightly larger than normal oscillation in power output. This is orders of magnitude larger. And what makes it even worse is that the energy output is ramping up exponentially. Most of the equipment in the lab is already fried. All we can do is evacuate and hope that it winds down on its own."

"Can you shut it down?"

"We are researching how to use Tessie as a power source specifically because it is self powered," the doctor retorted, exasperated.

"I'll take that as a no. Where's Barton?" Fury had stationed Clint Barton in the lab as an added layer of security after the incident with Emile Leblanc .

"Here," Hawkeye was just walking up to Fury when the Tesseract explodes into light, emitting a rainbow in all directions before giving one final blinding white flash. The few surviving electronics fizzled and died. Red emergency lights snapped on.

A vortex of pure blackness rose up from the Tesseract, the entire building gave a shake, and then the air tore open, blasting wind through the room, knocking over equipment and scattering papers into the air.

Thump thump

Everything went quiet, with the gentle glow of the Tesseract illuminating a dimly visible human figure in an outlandish costume sprawled next to it.

"Sir?" Director Fury called out.

The figure turned towards him, holding an odd staff. Fury knew enough about how enhanced humans worked to be concerned. "Sir, put down the staff." Guards from the far side of the room approached the figure. Fury drew his side arm, but kept it pointed at the floor, so as not to escalate the situation.

In all the commotion, nobody paid any attention to the petite woman that had landed a few feet further back, among the equipment racks. She gingerly pulled herself up, holding on to one of the jutting sensor arms. She was dressed in black skirt and a dark red blouse, so she blended in much better with the laboratory equipment than the garishly dressed man, especially in the dim red light.

"I am Loki of Asgard, and I have a glorious mission!" The man in the yellow and green outfit looked up at Fury and then at the staff in his hand.

"Put it down," Fury repeated.

"I think not." He jabbed the head of the staff out in front of him, creating a blue barrier between himself and the rest of the room. At the same time the guards opened fire. The bullets bounced off the blue light. The Japanese woman threw herself behind a desk with an 'eep'. Most everybody else dropped to the floor, to avoid the ricochets.

Loki gave another jab of the staff, and the light flew out, slamming into Fury and one of the soldiers. Loki followed after it, charging the humans.

Barton pulled up his bow and nocked an arrow as Loki leaped over the tangle of bodies in front of him, but the Aesir was faster than human, and he landed on Barton, bringing his staff down to smash the bow out of the way before he could fire. Hawkeye pivoted sideways, trying to redirect the attack away from himself, but the Aesir was remarkably strong despite his slight build. He easily smashed Barton to the ground.

Loki jabbed his staff out again, sending another pulse of blue light out that knocked down the remaining security guards.

"I'll be taking this now." He casually walked over to the Tesseract and picked it up. "Oh, and the technical staff will be helpful. He touched the tip of his staff to Selvig and the woman in the red sweater before turning back to Clint Barton, "And you a well. You have spunk. I like that."

Barton promptly grabbed a rifle and covered the guards in case any of them had recovered enough to consider starting something as he fell into step with Loki.

As they walk out, Loki took on the appearance of one of the scientist, lab coat and all.

/\ b'D /\

"That was pretty impressive, what you did back there." Steve and 'Leblanc' (Shirou) were walking through a run down part of town. Steve figured that if Leblanc was well enough to take out a couple of terrorists, there was no reason for him to be languishing in a hospital. And so he had offered Leblanc the nickel tour of the city, to see if any differences sprang out at him (and to give him a chance to pick Leblanc's brain a little). "Care to show me what else you can do?"

Shirou pondered. He didn't like showing off his abilities – too risky. Or at least it had been, back on his Earth. But here... he didn't know the rules. He really didn't know anything about the Twilight World in this reality, and it made him even more tense than usual. Was the the Magus Association as strict here? Did the Magus Association even exist? Steve obviously had had some sort of self reinforcement running during the fight with the A.I.M terrorists (though he wasn't using mage circuits, as far as Shirou could tell), and and he certainly wasn't concerned about letting people see him use it. Did that mean that the US government here know about magic users? So maybe a quid pro quo..."Ok, but I'm not much of a bare handed fighter - I usually use a sword." Steve might be his guard / handler but he seemed like a decent guy, and he really was curious about the extent of the American's self reinforcement.

And maybe he would learn something about how things worked here in turn. He was especially curious about how accepting everybody was of Steve and his magic (or did he just have a Mystic Code?). Worst case scenario, Shirou was pretty confident he could ditch Steve and go to ground. Though that would make finding Rin more difficult.

Steve smiled, "that's ok. I am partial to shields myself." He still hadn't adjusted to waking up 70 years in the future, but at least now he had a compatriot who was going through the same thing. And this Emile Frenchy struck him as the quiet, dependable sort. The type of guy that would have your back in a firefight. "The gym where I work out is over here."

The building was a fitness center run by the Army MWR, but it was a little beat up, and hadn't been updated in a couple of decades. It felt a lot more like home than the shining chrome and whitewash high-tech gym on the base.

There were a couple of guys lifting weights in the front area, but Steve swept past them and up the stairs. The third floor was a bunch of large training rooms - some with padded mats on the floor, others with plain hardwood - and they were all empty.

"So you sure you want to do this?" Steve unlocked his locker and grabbed his shield. "Do you need to get a sword or anything?" In retrospect it occurred to Steve that this might not be the best idea - Emile was still recovering from whatever had happened to him. He should probably go a little light on him.

Shirou structurally grasped the shield, reading its history (and more importantly, the history of its owner). As the information settled into his core, Shirou smiled for the first time since waking up in this new world. A knot of tension that had been been coiled tight in his chest, that he had carried around the world, from war zone to disaster to whatever godforsaken hell hole he traveled to next, that knot that had held him so tight that he felt like he was going to choke if he relaxed or even took too deep a breath, that knot finally released.

"No, I'm good." A pair of falchions appeared in his hands.

'_I'm home.'_

/\ b'D /\

A group of technicians, led by Dr Selvig, were working on setting up the Tesseract in an empty warehouse. It was hard to tell what time of day it was, as there were no windows in the building. All that was visible were piles of crates - some holding recently acquired technical equipment, others empty and acting as makeshift shelves, giving the whole place a slap-dash, jury-rigged feel.

"How did you do that illusion?" The woman in the red sweater demanded.

"Excuse me?" Loki turned to examined her, "I told you to get to work. Aren't you supposed to be under my thrall?"

"Pht, no," Rin replied. "But that illusion was very sophisticated, and you dropped it into place at a moments notice. How are you casting without even a minimal aria? Is that staff a Mystic Code?"

Loki's eyes glowed as he attempted to reimpose his will on the woman.

"I told you, that won't work on me. But if you are willing to explain how you do that, I will be happy to work for you. Now that hypnosis spell, for instance, should be at least a three count aria. And while many magi do customize their arias to the point that you don't even realize that they are using it, you didn't even say anything. But your eyes.. Hmm. Do you have Mystic Eyes of Hypnotism?"

"I honestly have no idea what you are talking about." Loki was bemused by this woman (magus)? Who appeared to not care about anything except how magic worked. He examined her – she was smaller than she first appeared. Her posture was surprisingly aggressive. Much like those little dogs that some of the ladies on Asgard favored.

"Then how do you do your magic?"

Loki just smirked at her. One moment he was a slightly taller than average man. The next, he was a Japanese woman with short, bobbed hair, red sweater and an annoyed frown on her face, "I just do."

Rin threw up her hands. "Well, your no help."

Loki turned to where Dr. Selvig was working, "I assume that this woman -"

"Rin Tohsaka."

"This Rin Tohsaka doesn't work for you?"

"Never seen her before," replied the scientist as he continued adjusting the apparatus attached to the Tesseract by a rope of wires. A technician started up a generator, and the Tesseract's glow changed color. Dr Selvig smiled and stood back to inspect his work.

"What is your goal for all this, anyway?" Rin asked.

"Why, to conquer Earth. Does that bother you?"

"Not my Earth." Rin smiled disarmingly, "But I have to admit, for a villain bent on world domination you are refreshingly straightforward."

"Who said I am the villain?" Loki put a hand to his chest, looking hurt, "I am doing this for the Earther's benefit." At Rin skeptical look, he continued, "it has recently come to my attention that Hela, Hel's daughter," he gestured, creating an image of an intense, angry looking woman, "plans to conquer Earth. And there is no way that the Earthers will be able to resist her armies of the Dead. So I have taken it upon myself to conquer Earth to prevent it from falling under Hela's sway."

Rin peered at the very familiar image, "Wait, Hel's daughter?"

"Yes, I know, right? I have no idea how somebody as homely as Hel managed to have such an attractive daughter, or any daughter, really, since all of the men she has contact with aren't exactly 'daddy' material, being dead and all." Loki pretended to look scandalized.

Rin took one last look at the image before turning to Loki. "I'm in."

This Rin Tohsaka was a completely unexpected dollop of chaos dropped into his plans. He would have to improvise. Loki smiled, he could feel his heart beating faster at the prospect.

This was going to be fun.

/\ b'D /\

Nick Fury entered the dilapidated gym that his agents informed him was Steve Rogers' current location, _'Figures __that__t__he man is depressed if this is where he s__p__ends __h__is days.' _Nick had a full dossier on every member that he was recruiting for his Avengers Initiative, including a psych work up. Captain America should be a great asset, once recruited, but Steve was the sort that didn't do well when he was at loose ends, so he decided that he better handle the recruitment himself.

The entire front area was empty, and there was muted thumping coming from upstairs. Nick Fury quirked an eyebrow as he walked past the gym equipment and up the stairs.

The second floor was a basketball court, and that was also empty. Now for an Army gym, that was worrying. Nick loosened his holster as he headed back to the stairs.

He was completely unprepared for the sight that greeted him when he arrived on the third floor. In the corner of the largest work out room stood a gaggle of a two dozen off duty soldiers, watching a sparring match like a bunch of star stuck teen girls.

In the rest of the room was Steve Rogers going all out against Emile Leblanc, who was wielding a pair of swords, a trench coat swirling around him.

Both were moving at speeds that were beyond human. The red head was slightly faster, but Steve had superior tactical thinking and strength, making them evenly matched. Nick stopped and watched. It was like seeing a battle between mythological heroes, between Hector and Achilles, or Arthur and Lancelot.

Steve kicked at Shirou's midsection, but Shirou twisted out of the way, retaliating with a (blunted) sword. But Steve slid under it, letting the weapon skid along his shield. He surged up, trying to close the distance so that Shirou wouldn't be able to make use of his sword's reach, but Shiriou punched out with the hilt, redirecting Steve and turning him so that Shirou would have a clear shot at his back. Except that Steve had anticipated that, and came out of the maneuver facing the redhead square on.

Shirou frowned. Knowing how Steve fought was less of an advantage than usual – his opponent was so skilled that even if he did lure him into making a mistake, Steve just turned it into another opportunity. It was like fighting a Heroic Spirit. Except there was no 'Tactician' class Servant.

Nick waited for a pause in the action. Finally, Steve caught Emile's sword on his shield and flipped him, throwing Shirou hard enough that when he landed, he took a moment to recover his footing.

"Very nice gentlemen. May I have a few minutes of your time?" Fury turned to the gawkers. "If you would give us some privacy." Despite the words, it was clear that these were not requests. The soldiers saluted and promptly exited. Nick Fury walked over to the other two. "I hope you have enjoyed your time off, because I got a mission for you." He looked at Steve, making some quick adjustments to his plan. "Are you willing to vouch for Emile?" At Steve's nod, Nick continued, "For both of you."

Nick handed over a file to Steve Rogers, "this is what we know about the Tesseract – the one that seems to be involved in Mr. Leblanc's precipitous arrival on our Earth. Our researchers have been trying to harness it as a source of clean, nearly limitless power, but in the wrong hands, it can be used as doomsday weapon. This man," he handed a second dossier to Steve Rogers, "is definitely 'the wrong hands'."

Fury was a little hesitant at including an unknown like Emile Leblanc on a mission of this importance, but Steve was a good judge of character, and it would be beneficial to have another skilled combatant if worst came to worst. Or if Banner Hulked out and trashed New York. Again.

Shirou looked over the information as as Steve passed over the folders. A magically powered being from another dimension who stole a clean power source and had a history of aggression and trouble making? If that didn't call for a hero, he didn't know what did.

"I'm in."

/\ b'D /\

Dr Selvig adjusted something on his laptop as Rin walked up to peer at the Tesseract. "Can I help you?"

"Maybe." She muttered a quick aria under her breath as she inspected at the device. "How are you planning to compensate for the dimensional bleed?" She needed to win this 'Loki's' respect if he was going to be any use to her. And despite her self confident demeanor - arrogance was her way of dealing with confusion - she knew she needed help. She was lost in a strange new world. She had tried contacting the Clock Tower and gotten nothing. And worse, Shirou was probably lost somewhere here as well, and that idiot didn't have her common sense. He would get arrested or something without her help. And what if he tried to be a 'hero'? There was no room for heroes in this world. Her stomach roiled as she started worrying about all the possible things that could go wrong for Shiro. And she was out of antacids.

The doctor looked up, "Dimensional bleed?" confused, "We have the Tesseract fully controlled. There is a little bit of neutrino radiation, but I have it minimized – it is barely detectable."

Rin pulled herself back from her distracted state."Yet it is radiating in the sixth and higher dimension. For beings that operate in those higher dimensions, it's acting as a beacon, flashing 'free food'"

Loki sauntered over to the discussion, "I don't see anything."

Rin scowled at the amateur. "Here," she cast a more powerful version of the same spell, which created an afterimage around the Tesseract. Depending on how you moved your head, different parts of it glowed. "See that? That bright spot starts at the 8th dimension. And these two are sixth dimensional bleed. This thing is giving off a LOT of energy."

"Can you lock it down?" Selvig asked. He wasn't certain what this woman was showing him, but he wasn't one to disparage another's expertise. Also, it made sense - the Tesserract was an immense power source.

"Yes, but I need you to do a computer search for me, for a person."

"How is that related?" Selvig asked, puzzled.

"Simple," Rin smiled, "It's quid pro quo. Without the search, I don't stop the radiation. And who knows what will show up for dinner." Her smile turned feral.

"Is he important to you?" Loki interrupted

"Obviously. Otherwise I wouldn't be asking for this search," Rin rolled her eyes, "But you don't know if he is important to me because I love him, or because I hate him." She smiled again.

Loki smiled.

Selvig glanced at the two individuals staring at each other, smiling like sharks as they waited for the other to blink.

"If you two are done with your pissing match here, we have work to do."

/\ b'D /\

Shirou walked through the corridors of power - the corridors of the SHIELD helicarrier, to be precise. It was massive, to the point that even with the greater amount of mana available on this Earth Shirou was hesitant to Structurally Grasp it. Though he very much wanted to.

It was a giant flying platform / ship / weapon. Nothing like this existed in his world. Not even True Magic could make something as awesome as this (at least in his opinion). It was as big as an aircraft carrier (and as a matter of fact, it hosted an assortment of aircraft), there where hundreds of crew members, and its mission was to combat super powered terrorists.

He really, really, wanted to Structurally Grasp it.

Shirou followed the soldier (Sailor? Airman? He had no idea what the correct term was) to the conference room where Nick Fury was going to be briefing the team on the situation. This particular meeting room was located right off of the main control center of the helicarrier, so that the Director didn't have to leave the center of his domain for long. Shirou was also exited to meet the rest of this team - one of the petty officers had just announced that their quinjet had landed. It was exciting to have other people who shared his values. Wait until Rin met Steve and the others – it would blow her mind…. His musing slammed to a halt and Shirou frowned as he remembered the one flaw with that idea. No Rin.

"Here you are, sir." The soldier opened the door and motioned Shirou to enter. The room was filled with an array of computer displays on one side, and a row of floor to ceiling windows on the other. Since he was the first one there, he walked over to look down on the ocean. They were flying low enough so that he could just make out the waves crashing against the tiny barrier island below them without having to reinforce his eyes.

A few moments later, the door on the other side of the room opened, letting in a group of four. "Hello, Emile. Let me introduce you to Bruce Banner, our chief scientist for this operation, and Natasha Romanov, a close combat specialist, like myself." Steve showed the others in. In addition to the blond soldier, there was a mousy geek type and a stern looking red haired woman in a black uniform. "And of course you already met agent Coulson." He then gestured to Shirou, "and this is Emile Leblanc, an archer and close combat specialist."

"Archer?" Natasha quirked an eyebrow, "we already have an archer." Shirou was a little taken aback at this cold reception. Of the four, she was the only one besides Steve that had the settled, poised look of somebody ready to explode into action at a moments notice.

"Don't mind her. Natasha has worked with Mr. Barton several times, and she is just concerned for his well being," Agent Coulson explained. Shirou had been briefed on what had transpired at Area 54.

"Well, I'm pleased to meet you" Banner stuck his hand out to shake.

As Shirou took it, he detected a whiff of something rancid, but it was almost subliminal, the way he 'smelled' magic. _'__T__his guy is probably also magically enhanced. He's probably got some sort of enhancements to his intellect'_. Shirou was again surprised and pleased at how readily magical abilities were accepted on this earth.

The woman didn't appear to have anything magical about her, but without casting a diagnostic spell, he couldn't be sure. She moved with a grace that bespoke exceptional skill in some martial arts, though.

Shirou tagged along as the group went out to the helicarrier bridge and half-listened as Banner explained to Director Fury how he would find the Tesseract through the magic of science. _'__That guy sounds like Rin __when she gets into lecture mode.__' _A pang of anxiety passed through Shirou. He hoped wherever she was, Rin was ok. But Rin's absences was the only real drawback to this situation. Shirou looked around the massive room. Everybody was working with dedication. He wasn't certain how long he would stay here, but for now, this 'Avengers initiative' was very appealing. If Rin was here with him, it would be perfect. She was a confusing person to deal with, but he found that even after spending just a few days with her again, he missed her.

Steve settled into his chair. He was looking forwards to working with this new team. He had been idle for to long. He looked over at Emile. He still missed Peggy, and Bucky too, but here was another lost soul, a displaced warrior looking to fight for justice. Maybe this future wasn't so bad.


	3. Chapter 3

chapter

"Are you certain we just stay out here?" Shirou asked. He was perched on the rusty fire escape of a small office building overlooking a warehouse, keeping an eye out for trouble. Across the street, Captain America was crouched down on the warehouse roof, looking in through a digital periscope as the Black Widow negotiated with her contacts.

"Yeah, I feel strange about it too, but women in the modern world are quite capable of taking care of themselves. Many of them even prefer it." Steve replied.

"Oh, I know. Rin made that very clear. I just hate not helping." Shirou reinforced his eyes and scanned the neighboring buildings, looking for any interlopers.

"Who's this Rin?" Steve asked absent mindedly as he watched Natasha get into the face of the arms dealer. If the guy's goons went for their weapons, he would take them down while Natasha dealt with the dealer.

"Rin... is complicated."

"Girlfriend?"

"Maybe. Sort of. We were friends in high school, but then we drifted apart. But then we were working together to shut down a rogue inter-dimensional portal – she's an expert on those, and I was there as back up – and we sort of clicked. So I don't know where we stand, but we both got sucked into the the portal. With any luck, she's somewhere on this Earth."

Steve nodded. He wasn't going to tell the poor guy that that the odds weren't in his favor. A random accident was just that. Random. "We got a runner!" The dealer's bodyguards attacked Natasha as the man himself took off for the back. Steve raced along the roof, jumping down to the parking lot moments after the back door slammed open and the dealer ran towards a red Camry that was idling in back.

The dealer was just yanking open the passenger door when when a pair of arrows slammed into the car's hood. The engine sputtered and died.

Captain America slammed into the startled gun runner. Before the panicked driver could think of what he should do, a Tora-Shinai arrow shattered the window and knocked him unconscious.

"I swear, I don't know anything!" the dealer protested. Captain America zip tied him and the driver before turning to look as Natasha and Shirou arrived.

"Yeah, my sense is that he's as clueless as he looks." Natasha corroborated, "Toss him to Interpol and let's go"

"Where does that leave us?" Shirou asked. Natasha frowned without answering

"It seems that Loki isn't trying to sell the Tesseract on the black market, so we're back to Banner's high tech toys."

"And Fury's high tech surveillance." Natasha added. She wasn't thrilled with Fury hacking every traffic camera, store security camera and drone that wasn't locked up tight, but she did have to admit that it made her job easier most days.

/\ b'D /\

Loki sat on his throne in the warehouse floor, as his mind controlled slaves (and that Tohsaka woman) worked to set up the Tesseract to his (well, technically the 'Other's') specifications. He wasn't really big on technicalities.

He closed his eyes and slipped into a light trance. As he did, the gem on his staff began to glow, astrally projecting his mind to somewhere else. When he next opened his eyes, he was on a barren moonscape, with armored figures milling in the distance. Sitting on a throne surmounting a rocky hillock was the Other.

As Loki approached, the giant figure rumbled. "The Chitauri grow restless."

Loki smiled, "If they can not wait, let them have a go at each other. I will bring them to glorious battle soon enough." Dealing with the Other was always a delicate balance between subservience and command. So basically, politics.

Mmm. Politics. A pleasantly warm feeling filled Loki.

"Glorious? Against Earth? The humans will be exterminated in a heartbeat. We are done waiting. We demand the Tesseract."

"We have a deal. Your forces will assist me in conquering Earth, and in return I will give you the Tesseract."

"Why do you even want the Earth. It is nothing."

"True, but it will make an adequate staging area for my invasion of Asgard."

The Other rumbled to itself, before speaking, "You will have your war. But do not make us wait too long. You are not the only resource available to us."

/\ b'D /\

Rin walked over to Dr Selvig as Loki sat on his throne, meditating, "did you have a chance to do the internet search for Shirou Emya, like I asked?"

Selvig looked up from his work, "Yeah, I have had it running in the background. I used all the major search engines. Come over here." He walked to an out-of-the-way laptop, "you can look at the list of profiles here, and see if any of them match your missing man."

He fired up the application. "Here are the search parameters, and here are the results. You can read the full profile by clicking here." Selvig was fairly certain that Rin had no idea how to use a computer, so her chances of realizing that the search parameters were set too narrowly was pretty much zilch.

The list was depressingly short, and Rin quickly determined that none of them matched Shirou. She closed her eyes and leaned against a crate, exhausted. She had hoped... Well, She had cast her own search spell. She would know what had happened to that idiot soon enough. And then she would be done with all this subterfuge and manipulation. But if Shirou's was injured somewhere, and she didn't use all the resources at her disposal to find him...

Rin took a deep breath to pull herself together and glanced at her watch. _'Shirou is fine.'_ She would just have to grit her teeth and wait. In order to cover the whole world in a reasonable amount of time, she would typically need a lei line. But this world was so rich in ambient mana that she would get a response from her search spell within a week. It was like the Age of Gods, as described in the journal articles she read.

Rin closed the laptop and glanced over to where Loki was seated on his throne, his eyes open but unseeing.

Seeing her putative employer occupied, She cast a quick diagnostic spell, and when that didn't elicit a response, she cast another, more powerful one at the staff. Then, she sent a trickle of prana to seep into the crystal, questing. This could end badly if Loki detected it, but Rin had never lacked for self confidence.

/\ b'D /\

Some time later, Rin was finishing up with placing wards around the warehouse when Loki came up behind her, almost breathing down her neck, and inspected her work. "Hmm. Very interesting."

Rin took a step to the side. As usual, Loki was standing too close. She wasn't certain if it was a cultural thing, or if Loki was just a creep, but it was driving her nuts. "Do you want something?"

"Oh, yes." Loki paused for dramatic effect. Rin rolled her eyes. He was a master of drama. "I spoke to Dr. Selvig about shielding the Tesseract as you described, and he says that he can do it, but we will need some additional equipment. He came up with a shopping list of the items that we will need." He handed Rin a small piece of paper.

She looked it over, "I am going to go out on a limb and assume that we will be stealing this stuff."

"That would be simplest, yes. Is that a problem?"

'_Yes,'_ Rin sighed, and said out loud, "no."

Beggars couldn't be choosers. But she couldn't wait until her search spells finally returned so she knew what she was facing on this world. If there wasn't any Magus association, then she would have a lot more freedom to operate. A small grin almost escaped, but Rin chased it down and quashed it before Loki could see.

/\ b'D /\

Steve and his team had returned to the Helicarrier, and were grabbing some lunch while waiting for Fury to come debrief them. So far, their investigations had drawn a blank – the gun runner had not known anything useful (though it was good to get him off the streets – he had been peddling some nasty AIM developed weapons), and none of their other leads had panned out even that much.

"Sir, a camera in Brussels has detected Loki," one of the technician on the helicarrier's bridge called out just as Fury was heading out to the conference room. The tech pulled up the footage on one of the array of computer monitors that he was seated in front of. The rest continued to display the feeds from all the security cameras that were flagged by the SHIELD facial recognition software.

"Are you certain its him?"

"Software has a 100% match." The technician pointed to a frame grab. It was Loki.

Nick Fury keyed the intercom, "Captain, we have a target. Take the active team in a quinjet."

/\ b'D /\

The quinjet dropped to a hover above the plaza in front of the museum where Loki had been spotted. Natasha had no idea why that lunatic was at a museum: it smelled of a trap, but they didn't have a lot of options.

"I'll go in first. You are on back up, in case he escapes." Captain America pulled his mask on and leaped out of the quinjet onto the second floor balcony of the museum. As he landed, he rolled over his shoulder and up to his feet so that he could keep his forward momentum and build up a running speed. Below, people rushed out of the main entrance in a panic.

Shirou, or 'Archer' as Fury had dubbed him, projected a bow and waited on the the open ramp of the hovering quinjet.

"Can you see anything from where you are?" Natasha called out from the pilot's seat.

"I'm good." Shirou reinforced his eyes. He could see into the museum foyer as Captain America leaped down from the second floor, intercepting an attack by Loki that was about to strike civilians. Cap then whirled to face off with the villain, his shield deflecting another blast.

Shirou raised his bow, a projected copy of Calbog II ready, as he tracked the action.

/\ b'D /\

Two guards were standing outside the research building, just down the street from the museum. They were professionals - despite the noise coming from the museum, they maintained their vigilance.

Not that it mattered. Rin Gandr'ed them both from her position on the neighboring roof. As they dropped, Clint rolled over the roof edge and landed silently down in the alleyway. He pulled out a high tech device designed for breaking & entering electronic locks (SHIELD issue).

"Ok we're in." He pulled the door open, letting the two of them into the facility. "The iridium alloy rods should be on the second floor."

Rin nodded, "Is the information reliable?"

Clint shrugged, "SHIELD has made a lot of enemies. And this particular bit is from one who worked here until last month. Chances are the intel is still good."

Silently, they slipped inside.

Rin glanced over at her partner in crime. Clint was ok to work with – better than his boss was, at least. Loki always appeared to be on the verge of hitting on her, and that would have… consequences. She really didn't want to have a knock down, drag out fight with him. Not that she was worried: with the absurd amount of mana available in this world, she was confident that she could toast his fairy ass and scatter it across the next thousand dimensions. But she wasn't Shirou, always looking for a fight.

Rin paused as Clint darted down the corridor to the next intersection and disabled the security camera there. _'Very professional, if a little dull.' _Of course this was the mind controlled version of Clint, she considered. '_If Shirou was a woman, he wouldn't be so against __hypnotizing__ people.'_

/\ b'D /\

Meanwhile, at the museum, the fight continued. Cap preferred to fight close up while Loki was more a 'Caster' type, and was trying to maintain his distance using energy blasts from his staff. Shirou watched from his perch on the Quinjet's boarding ramp as the vehicle hovered over the plaza. Loki was a little too far away for Shirou to fully analyze his staff (and it was a staff, not a sword, which made it a little trickier), but it seemed fairly limited in what it could do.

But what it did, it did well. A blast of energy caught Cap head on, throwing him out onto the plaza. As Captain America tucked and rolled, Loki strolled outside, looking relaxed and arrogant.

THUMP

To be hit in the chest by Calbog II.

As the Asgardian staggered, trying to recover from the concussion, the protective magic from the staff flickered in and out. Shirou leaped from the quinjet, landing on reinforced legs and charging the trickster. At the same time, Rogers recovered and ran at the enemy from the other side.

Both heroes reached Loki at the same time, coordinating their attacks so that trickster god struggled to block all of them. His shield spell blocked one of Shirou's swords, and he dodged a punch from Captain America, but Shirou's second sword almost knocked the staff from his hands.

Steve smiled grimly. He was pleasantly surprised at how well Emile worked around his fighting style.

Shirou kept a copy of Captain America's shield in his mind, so that he could plan around Steve's next move. As Loki began to lose track of the battle, Shirou attacked all out at his head. The trickster turned and ducked as he avoided the falchion.

Therefore he was completely open when a strike from Cap's shield knocked him to his knees. Loki started to look desperate: He deflected the blows as best he could, but he was relying more and more on the protective magics in the staff, creating a blue hemisphere around himself that absorbed the sword and shield strikes. And then the blue hemisphere began to shrink down towards his body. Loki shot out a dazzling light to disorient his attackers, but neither Cap nor Shirou were slowed.

Shirou's Kanshou deflected off of Loki's protective magics as the trickster turtled, but as he brought it around for a second strike, the the sword changed in the blink of an eye. Loki screamed as Balisarda cut right through the protection and into his arm.

"Yield," Shirou demanded.

Loki looked at the ugly short sword that was at his chin, smeared with his blood. Despite its crudeness, it had cut through his protective magics as if they were soft leather. This was rather unexpected. "I yield," he raised his hands.

/\ b'D /\

Hawkeye held the door for Rin as they returned to their warehouse base with the cases of iridium. Rin watched in satisfaction as a couple of worker drones carried the cases in from their (stolen) truck. She was looking forwards to seeing how Dr. Selvig used them to control the Tesseract. This intersection of magic and technology was completely foreign to her training. Magi from her home world were contemptuous of technology (or possibly scared), to the point that there had been absolutely no research done on interfacing the two.

She was practically salivating as the doctor opened the first case. Which is when the gunfire erupted outside. At the same time, her wards started to scream before collapsing into shards as something massive overwhelmed them.

Hawkeye swept Rin behind him, knocking her to the ground as the main door burst in. He fired an arrow at whatever came through the door, but Rin couldn't see what was going on. The temperature around her began to plummet as well.

'_Stupid male chauvinist.' _As Rin scampered to her feet icicles burst out of the floor, skewering guards. Rin Gandr'ed the first attacker.

And nothing happened.

"They're Dead. Zombies! " She yelled, "Aim for the head." She pointed at another zombie "Blitzen" and let the lightning bolt play over the spasming dead body until it finally caught fire.

Clint dodged an ice spear and shot an exploding arrow into the head of another. "This is too slow!"

"You don't say!" Rin countered as she dived out of the way of another zombie. If Shirou was here, he would have made quick work of these Dead.

"Sakura, I know you're here!" Rin yelled as their small group was surrounded by a huge mass of the Dead. Most of the guards were quickly overwhelmed as the Dead did a slow motion Zerg rush, grabbing and pummeling them. Clint had his bow up, but he wasn't certain who to shoot.

One of the Dead opened its mouth. "Hello, sister." Sakura's voice came out. "I should not be surprised that you continue to dog my heels. But at least I will take some pleasure in ending that."

As the Dead started forward, Rin called out "I know where Shirou is." The Dead froze. "I'll make you a deal. You let us go, and I will take you to him." _'I hope I didn't misread what I saw back before.' _Given her own feelings for Shirou, it would be really easy to project those same feelings onto her sister. And fatal. _'I hope becoming a Dead Apostle hasn't changed her. Other than letting out all of her repressed anger.' _Rin nervously eyed the Dead surrounding them. They were in various states of decay, and they did not smell good.

The Dead stood impassively. Rin, Clint and Dr Selvig stood clustered, waiting. Clint muttered, "Sister, huh? I knew we shouldn't trust you."

"Estranged sister."

"No deal," Came the response from a large male corpse. "But if you are here, then there is the possibility that Shirou is as well. That is good to know." There was a pause.

Rin really hoped that Sakura was considering what she had said. Finally, the voice came from another zombie, in the back, "But that is a problem for later."

Rin waited with baited breath as the zombies stood around them, not attacking. Finally, the ones in back scooped up the Tesseract and the iridium rods before retreating back the way they came. The Dead guarding Rin and the others waited until the others had left before filing out.

"They let us go." Selvig marveled.

Rin shrugged, "Sakura is not as evil as she tries to be." Or at least that was the only explanation she was willing to verbalize. _'Shirou brings out the best in people. Even when he isn't present.'_

/\ b'D /\

"So how many of those swords do you have?" Steve asked as he sat in one of the quinjet's swivel chairs, rotated so that he could keep an eye on their prisoner as he conversed with Archer.

Loki looked bored, staring out the window at the storm they were flying through.

"As many as I need," Shirou smiled. He was becoming more and more convinced that there were no functional magi on this Earth. Let them think that his abilities were naturally occurring, like Steve's. It always paid off to have an ace up your sleeve. He turned to examine the staff that Loki had been using as a weapon, structurally grasping it.

His eyes narrowed in surprise as he whirled towards the Trickster. "Where did you meet Rin Tohsaka?" he demanded.

Loki looked up surprised, "Who?"

"She's a short Asian woman, very intense. Dresses in red and black."

Loki shrugged, "All Asian woman are short. And I really don't pay much attention to you mortals. Not like my brother."

Which is when the quinjet's loading ramp was ripped off, revealing Thor, God of Thunder. He reached in, grabbing Loki by the scruff of his shirt and leaped back out into the storm.

"Hey! I wasn't done with him!" Shirou turned towards Steve, "I wasn't done with him! We need to go after him!"

"We need a plan."

"No time."

Steve paused and nodded, "We improvise. Parachute's behind your seat." He strapped his on and leaped out of the aircraft.

Natasha glanced back from fighting the controls as tried to stabilize the Quinjet, "I'd sit this one out – these guys are straight out of legends. They're basically gods."

Shirou concentrated: He had only gotten a quick glance, but it was enough. "I am the Bone of my Sword. Steel is my Body and Fire is my Blood...Trace on."

He projected, modifying and attuning to himself.

In his hand was a duplicate of Mjolnir.

"I have fought legends before."

He whirled his fake Mjolnir around his head and flung it out, holding on to the handle. The hammer flew out into the storm, dragging the redheaded magus behind it.


	4. Chapter 4

Shirou was flying

There was no other words for it.

He was being carried along by his projected copy of Mjolnir. The fact that he could not only project so powerful (and so alien) a noble phantasm, but also modify it on the go was because of the truly absurd amounts of mana available on this Earth.

Mjolnir was one of the most powerful Noble Phantasms he had ever encountered, and it was like a loyal dog – it would only let one individual lift it, and that was Thor. Shirou had had to rewrite the loyalty code so that it was directed at him.

The wind whipped past him, tugging at his clothing. Cold rain smashed into his face, making navigation difficult. Shirou reinforced his body, trying to prevent freezing to death.

There! Just ahead he saw Captain America arguing with Thor.

The (still bound) Loki was laying near Thor's feet, trying to butt-slide out of the conflict zone. Rain was was drenching everybody as it came down in sheets.

As Thor's raised his hammer to strike, Shirou let his Mjolnir pull him level with the ground, racing towards the angry thunderer. He let go at the last moment, dropping to the ground a few yards away and letting his copied Mjolnir continue on towards the god of thunder. But just as it was about to strike Thor, it dissolved in a blast of light. Apparently even on this bizarro version of Earth there were rules about duplicates being redacted by such close proximity to the original. Good to know.

"You dare, mortal.." Thor was usually an easy going Aesir, but dealing with his brother's foolery always pissed him off. And he was a warrior. You do not mess with a warrior's weapon. Not even a copy thereof. And that hammer had looked decidedly like Mjolnir!

"We need Loki. He has stolen the Tesseract, a powerful weapon that will cause untold harm in the wrong hands," Captain America called out.

"He will stand trial for his crimes on Asgard. I will not tolerate this interference." Thor turned back to the upstart warrior, "And I will not tolerate you trying to steal my hammer!" He swung Mjolnir at the red head, to drive the point home.

Shirou project Kanshou and Bakuya and dodged under the blow, but before he could retaliate, Captain America's knocked Thor into a tree. Shirou was conflicted - from Mjolnir, he knew that Thor was a worthy warrior. But Loki was his only connection to finding Rin, and that took precedence over everything. As Captain America and and Thor exchanged half-hearted blows (neither was really trying to maim or kill the other), he took a step forward and yelled into the melee, "Loki is our prisoner. We need him for our investigation," Shirou was shivering slightly from the wet and cold. "But you can have him once we're done with him."

Captain America jumped back out of combat range, to let Thor consider the request.

The demands! The impertinence! The god of thunder did not take kindly to mortals speaking to him thus. He took a deep breath and counted to ten in his head, like his anger management coach had instructed.

Then he punched the infuriating redhead again.

(He had been working on humility like Odin had commanded, but there was only so much disrespect that a god could take!)

Shirou twisted with the punch, letting most of its force slip by, before letting Bakuya dissolved back into nothing so he could hit Thor with his (reinforced) fist.

Which was about as useful as punching a brick wall.

"Archer, Thor is not the enemy," Captain America called out as Archer and Thor circled each other, Shirou reforming his signature paired falchions.

The two glared at each other before Shirou backed up. "Loki has information that we need. We can not wait." Shirou replied, trying to sound reasonable and calm. The stress of the situation, and the constant sheets of cold rain made thinking difficult. He knew that while Thor was not a bad person, he was quite volatile, but he couldn't find the words to explain to him the importance of what they were doing.

Thor watched the redhead. He wasn't certain what Archer had tried to hit him with, but it had looked suspiciously like Mjolnir. But that was impossible. He needed to learn more about this. Later. Thor sighed. Why was life always so complicated? Things used to be simply. You got up in the morning and killed frost giants until it got dark, and then you went home and drank mead all night with your companions. He glanced at the two warriors in front of him with a frown. He trusted Captain America – he had read of his exploits. But this Archer… he was a loose cannon, attacking people for no reason. And with their own weapons to boot.

Several moments passed as Thor and Arched faced off. Thor squinched his eyes in concentration as he sought to get a sense of the warrior facing him. Finally, once he trusted that Archer wasn't going to give him a reason to punch him again, Thor turned to look at his brother. "Loki, give us the Tesseract."

"So that I can go back home to face the wrath of Odin? Really? Is that the best you can offer me?" Loki looked like a drowned rat, with water streaming down his face and mud covering his fancy clothes, but he still manged to sound supercilious.

Thor turned back to face Cap, "I will return the Tesseract to you once we have it. But Loki, as much trouble as he is, is still my brother."

Loki rolled his eyes at the 'brother', before adding "Good luck finding the Tesseract, as I no longer have it." At the skeptical looks he shrugged, "I gave it away."

"You're lying," Thor retorted (always a safe assumption, with Loki). He grabbed the trickster by the scruff and attempted to glare him into submission. Loki just smiled.

"Family connection is no reason to circumvent justice," Shirou interrupted. "Loki needs to face a human court for crimes he committed."

Thor looked conflicted, "First he will come to Asgard. Then we can send him to Earth," he began, when with a roar, Iron Man swooped in through the rain.

"So what did I miss?" His amplified voice rolled out as he hovered above the scene. "Oh, I see, Master Thespian here has absconded.. is that the word? He's absconded with our prisoner. Hand him over, big boy, and we won't tell your mama that you're playing with her drapes."

Shirou looked up, aghast. His Japanese sensibilities had been worn down by experiencing many other countries over the years, but this behavior was beyond even most Americans.

"Your little stunt interrupted the (very) little time I take for personal moments. Now hand over horny-head, and we'll call it a day." Tony was not in a good mood. He had finally been able to get some time to take Pepper out for dinner. No work, no Iron Man, and then Fury's goons show up at the restaurant, whisking him away to deal with an emergency.

"Where is your fraternal loyalty?" Loki began when Thor interrupted, "Loki is coming with me!"

"We'll see about that," Tony began as he took the armor's safeties off line so he could pour more power into his repulsors.

"This isn't just about the Tesseract. Loki also may know the location of the woman who came here from an alternate Earth with me." Shirou yelled out.

Thor paused, and looked closely at Shirou, "This woman.. You love her?"

"Yes." Shirou surprised himself by replying without thinking. He stood there in shock, as Thor considered.

Thor nodded, "Ok, let's go."

"Wait, what?" Tony was flabbergasted. "Just like that? Love conquers all?"

Loki shrugged as best he could while being manhandled back towards the quinjet. "I told you, he's my IDIOT brother." His eyes twinkled merrily. He appeared surprisingly unconcerned for somebody who was a prisoner.

Shirou was barely aware of the byplay. _'I hadn't realized...'_ But what he had said was true.

Captain America just shrugged. He still missed Peggy, so he could sort of understand. But he wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth – infighting was always a waste of time.

/\ b'D /\

Shirou and the others watched as Fury explained the facts of life to Loki. The Trickster was currently standing in a transparent tube, his feet braced on the tiny lip that ran along the base of walls because the floor had flapped open, revealing an impressive mile long drop from the helicarrier to the ground below.

Shirou tuned and asked "Just as an aside, can Loki fly?"

Thor shrugged, "Not that I know. But he is a trickster."

Shirou nodded and turned back to the monitor. The audio was turned off, but they could see Fury gesticulate menacingly before finally closing the hatch. He said some final words to Loki before shoving a tray containing a sandwich and a glass of milk through a slot and stalking over to sit on a desk. Loki just smiled sardonically and took a bite of his tuna melt, like nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

Shirou kept an eye on the monitor - once Fury was done, he was going to go have a chat with Loki about Rin. From Structurally Grasping the scepter, he knew Loki hadn't had it long (though oddly enough, the scepter did have a link to him like Mjolnir did to Thor). But sometime during his ownership of it, Rin had managed to place her Prana into the gem.

"Did you make a copy of Mjolnir?" Thor demanded.

"Yes. I can create duplicates of any sword or similar weapon."

"But Mjolnir isn't some weapon," Thor was scandalized, "it was specially made for me by Eitri and Brokkr, so that only my hand can lift it." He gestured with the hand in question, glaring at Archer.

Natasha looked on to this exchange. The profile on Archer that Director Fury had given them ranked Emile Leblanc as an 'Enhanced Asset', like Captain America. It was beginning to sound like that characterization may have been in error. From what she saw on the quinjet, it may be that he was a PMD – a Person of Mass Destruction, like Thor or Iron Man.

That was troubling.

She inspected the easy going man. They needed more information on him. She glanced at the others in the conference room. Banner was watching Fury's performance while Tony was playing with some technology – he was muttering complaints about the user interface on Banner's Tesseract detector. More importantly, Steve Rogers didn't appear concerned at all.

Maybe she was was over reacting.

But it wasn't paranoia if people really did try to kill you on a daily basis.

"Yeah, well, my copies all have some imperfections," Shirou replied mildly to Thor's comment.

"He really grows on you, doesn't he?" Banner gestured towards the monitor. Loki might be a self absorbed ass-hat, but he was kind of funny.

"Loki's gonna drag this out. He's enjoying the attention." Steve placed himself between Leblanc and the god of thunder, "So, Thor, what's his play?" Steve tried to direct the conversation back on topic.

"I'm not certain. Word in Asgard is that he has allied with some group called the Chitauri. They're not of Asgard, nor any world known. But when I spoke to him just recently (before Cap and Archer arrived) he claimed that he was doing it to save Earth from Hel's daughter."

"That man, god, whatever, lies like a carpet. We can pretty much disregard whatever comes out of his mouth," Tony was thinking out loud (as he continued tinkering with something on his computer), "Based on his actions - 80 fatalities in two days - I would say he doesn't give a rats ass about humans. Hey you," Tony pointed at random at one of the technicians working at a computer workstation, "Hel is the goddess of the dead – do a search for any increased reports of unquiet dead. If there is something to this Hel's daughter song and dance, there should be some trace. But otherwise, we stay on track for the the Tesseract emissions."

"Unless Loki has managed to contain them." Shirou mused.

"It's emitting a unique blend of neutrinos spiked with a few high energy gammas," Banner countered, "It's all low interacting – it would take several miles of concrete and lead to block all of it."

"The Tesseract is at least in part a magical construct. The emissions could be suppressed with the appropriate ward scheme."

Everybody turned to look at Shirou,

"Oh, great. Somebody thinks he's Harry Potter. So where's your broomstick and pointy hat?" Tony mocked.

"Is there something you haven't been telling us, son?" Fury walked into the room from having secured Loki.

Shirou considered. He liked these people. Even Tony. Despite their differences, they were all looking to protect those around them, not to destroy. But he knew that he was a lousy judge of character. Like with Shinji. He wished Rin was here.

"I am a Magus, though a very poor, inadequate one. My one strength is that I can magically analyze any weapon in an instant and learn its composition, its abilities, its history, and the history of those that wielded it." He turned to Steve, "That's how I knew I could trust Captain America to be honorable. And how I could match you in sparring – I learned who you were and how you fought from your shield." Steve Rogers looked perturbed by this, glancing at his shield with an odd sense of betrayal. "The Tesseract is a weapon. I analyzed it when I looked at it. I couldn't fully comprehend it – there was just too much. It's way more complicated than anything I have ever seen before. I blacked out. But I did learn enough to know some of how it works. And it works at least in part on magic."

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," Banner quoted.

"Oh, not you too." Tony groaned.

"What do you get on the staff that Loki was using," Captain asked, "It seems a lot like the Hydra weapons that I have seen."

"I don't know your Hydra, but what I saw was that it's not of terrestrial origin. And that it has sat, unused, for so long that it's history effectively begins just a few months ago. It was during those few months that it came into contact with Rin Tohsaka."

"Your girlfriend?" Tony interjected,

"I wouldn't go that far. But she is also a Magus. A far more powerful one than I."

/\ b'D /\

"Commander, I need to talk to you" Natasha approached Nick Fury as he pensively paced the Helicarrier's bridge. The rest of the heroes were either down in the lab or the adjoining conference room.

"What have you got?"

"If this Rin Tohsaka is as powerful as Leblanc says she is, we may have a problem."

"You mean that if she's more powerful than the guy who can potentially create a partial facsimile of the Tesseract from thin air, she could be a massive wild card in all this?"

"Oh, you caught that."

"Yes, and I am becoming more concerned about how little I know about our friend Leblanc."

Natasha nodded, "I am also, but I think we can worry about him later. Yes, he has his secrets, but who here doesn't? But both at the museum and then on the way back, with Thor, he did what needed to be done without hesitation or debate." Natasha paused before adding, "It's good to have another archer on the team." Even though Leblanc was nothing like Clint.

/\ b'D /\

"You didn't look terribly concerned when Fury popped the cork on your bottle." Shirou strolled into the prisoner containment room. Loki was sitting on the floor of his tube, looking board.

"Hello Mr Leblanc. Or should I call you Shirou Emya?" When that didn't garner a response, Loki continued, "are you here to make me a deal? Maybe in exchange for me telling you about your Asian sweetheart?"

"Maybe." Shirou considered. He knew that intrigue was not his strong suit. If he wasn't careful, Loki would take advantage of him. "You have a plan. You have accounted for all the variables, and even though you are our prisoner, you are convinced that you have everything under control."

"Oh, tell me more." Loki looked interested.

"We're all heroes. We all want to save people, so that constrains our actions. Makes us easy to predict." He spoke with an intensity as he looked past Loki at the impressive room, "But I came to the realization that you can't save people without killing others." He slammed his palm into the button opening the doors under Loki.

The Trickster barely managed to grab hold of the lip of the chamber, at the same time kicking his feet out to brace them on the far side of the chamber. He tottered, trying to keep from tumbling down a mile through the slightly cloudy sky. He wedged his hands more firmly on the near side as he wriggled his toes onto the ledge on the other.

"What do you want?" Loki asked, a cold sweat forming on his back as he realized that Shirou was not going to play by the rules.

Shirou stood and watched him.

"You need me alive. To find your girlfriend."

"No. I know that she is alive. I can take care of the rest. I just need to make sure that you don't interfere." Shirou turned and walked towards the door.

"Wait!" Loki called out, "I am not the enemy here. Your Rin is working for me. She will not take kindly to you murdering her partner."

Shirou whirled, "She would never work with someone like you!" His composure cracked.

"What's going on in here?" Agent Coulson ran in, slamming the 'close' button for Loki's chamber. "You can't go killing our prisoners, Archer!"

/\ b'D /\

"What was the meaning of that little stunt?" Nick Fury demanded of Shirou.

"I was trying to get some useful information."

"Kids got a point. We did get data." Tony remarked. Maybe Leblanc was more pragmatic than he had given him credit for. The jury was still out on whether that was a good thing or not.

"And if he had died?" Thor demanded.

"That would have solved one of our problems." Archer replied coldly.

Ok. Not a good thing, "You can't be the judge, jury and executioner."

Natasha was also conflicted on Leblanc. On the one hand, he had a solid, no nonsense attitude. On the other, he thought he was Harry Potter and was probably as nutty as the proverbial fruitcake. But so was Banner, and he was a useful additional to the team. She gave a surreptitious glance over at Banner. He appeared intent on his calculation. Good, no Hulk-anneurism today.

"Mr. Leblanc, I don't know how it worked in your world, but we have a system of laws, and courts to administer them. While you are on my planet, you will follow them. Is that clear?" Fury glared at Shirou.

Shirou found the response of the people... surprising. With the type of people he typically worked with, he was usually the one with a strong moral compass. Director Fury was correct that he had stepped over the line a little, but he was shocked that they had called him on it. He wasn't certain if he should be angry for this meddling or glad that they had prevented him from going too far. He looked around the conference room - the only one who wasn't giving him a disappointed look was Black Widow. And Banner, but he was barely paying attention to all the irrelevant 'people stuff' as he worked.

"Though now we have the additional headache that your high school crush is playing for the other team," Tony added.

"Rin wouldn't do that. She's like Stark – she might get too caught up in her ideas to notice the people around her, but she wouldn't do something unethical." Of course, he hadn't really spent much time with her in the past six years. What if she had changed? _'No, Rin is Rin. She wouldn't do anything to hurt people.'_

"I'm sorry, did you just compliment me? Because I can't tell if I should be flattered, or offended that you are comparing science to some voodoo." Tony was genuinely puzzled.

Before Shirou could reply, the door to the conference room slammed open and Steve Rogers stormed in, dropping a SHIELD pulse rifle on the table, "PHASE 2 is SHIELD using the Tesseract to create weapons."

"Rogers, we have gathered everything related to the Tesseract. This does not mean that we're..." Fury prevaricated

"These are the same design as the Hydra weapons. The ones they were developing using Tesseract technology." Steve remembered those clearly. They were what lead to the 70 year hiatus in his life.

Steve Rogers looks disgusted. "I was wrong, director. The world hasn't changed a bit." He was a soldier. He understood the need for weapons to defend yourself with. But new weapons would just lead to an arms race. And then somebody would decide to have a 'little war', just to test them out.

Banner began to get agitated. He couldn't concentrate. He had been keeping his cool in the face of all this chaos, but he hated weapons and violence. It made him anxious. And he wasn't very good at dealing with anxiety (but he knew somebody who was. And that made him even more anxious). "I'd also like to know why SHIELD is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction."

"Because of him." Fury pointed at Thor.

"Me?"

Nick glared at Thor, "Last year Earth had a couple of visitors from another planet who had a grudge match that leveled a small town. We learned that not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly, hilariously, out-gunned."

"The Aesir are a peaceful people," Thor protested.

"But you're not the only people out there, are you? And, not all Asgardians are the same. All cultures have their criminals." Fury replied shortly. Didn't Thor understand that he was the problem? Unnoticed by all, the gem inset into Loki's staff had begun to glow.

"Using the Tesseract is not the answer, though. It was your work with the Tesseract that drew Loki and his allies to Earth. It is the signal to all the realms that there is something of interest here." Thor retorted, slamming his fist onto the table in anger.

"He's right," Shirou interrupted. "The Tesseract bleeds magical energy. It's like a search light in the dark. You should lock it down. Besides, weapons are never the answer. People are." Shirou's library of weapons all told the same story. "You can create a corp of magic users to protect Earth."

Banner looked skeptical, "Magic is something that can be learned?" Curiosity pulled the cork on his anxiety, letting in drain away. He was a scientist after all. Loki's staff glowed brighter, but distracting a scientist on the hunt for knowledge is a daunting task. And the other participants in the argument were intrigued by this new option as well.

"Yes. If you have magic circuits – pathways for channeling magical power," Shirou intoned an an aria under his breath and looked around the room, "I just cast a spell for identifying what a person's magical capacity is. I'm not very good at it, but it will give me a general sense of who can be taught." He slowly turned his head, panning the room. "Actually, Dr. Banner, you have magic circuits, but they are all tied together, like a magic crest – almost a separate object, that can be transferred to closely related people. Other than that though.. Agent Coulson has a strong potential."

"Me?" the slightly geeky agent looked surprised, but his expression slowly slid into 'pleased'. He had always wanted to be a hero, like Captain America.

"But not Thor?" Banner asked.

"No. His abilities must not use the same type of magic."

"Now there are types of magic?" Tony asked skeptically. Despite himself, he was actually curious.

"I think so," Shirou ran a hand through his hair, nervously. This was way outside his comfort zone. He could face off against a swarm of undead, no problem. He go toe-to-toe with a god of thunder without batting an eyebrow, but having to give an impromptu lecture was making him break out in a sweat. "I really don't know much about this. If Rin was here, she could answer all your questions."

"Sir," A bridge tech entered the conference room, "we have a radio transmission from a Rin Tohsaka."


	5. Chapter 5

**n.****b.** I am a little surprised that nobody has asked me about the name of this story. I guess you all googled it.

START

"Sir," A bridge tech entered the conference room on the Helicarrier, "we have a radio transmission from a Rin Tohsaka, claiming she has information on agent Barton." The tech paused, looking agitated, "Sir, her call came in on the secure line!"

The tense stand off that had been developing was derailed. "Put her through," Fury leaned over the conference room table and keyed on the speaker phone mic before anybody else could process how to respond. "Hello Ms. Tohsaka. This is Director Fury of the SHIELD initiative. I am informed that you have information on Clint Barton."

"Yes. I know where he is."

Shirou's heart jumped - it really was Rin's voice! With the way his life had been going these last few years, he had been half expecting that his search for Rin would end up a wild goose chase, that he had been misreading the signs.

"Where?" The Director was to the point.

"Currently, he's standing next to me. You can have him back if you assist me with apprehending the woman identifying herself as Hela Hels-daughter."

Everybody started talking at once.

"Hel's daughter? I had heard rumors. I have never met her, but by all accounts she is extraordinarily dangerous," Thor began. The first he had heard of Hel having a daughter was decades ago – she had appeared as from nowhere - but she operated from the shadows, never crossing paths with him. It was only in the last couple of years that he had started hearing rather disturbing rumors about her. That she was massacring whole populations only to raise them from the dead.

"Rin, where are you?" Shirou called into the phone at the same time as Fury said, "We do not negotiate with hostage takers. Return Agent Barton immediately!"

"Some girlfriend you have there. Sounds like some of the women I dated." That was Tony, but nobody heard him as the volume in the room was too loud.

"My head!" Bruce was clutching his head, as Loki's staff tipped off of the table it had been laying on and rotated to point its glowing gem directly at him.

"Wait.. Shirou? Thank god! You're here! Are you ok? Never mind, we don't have time." Rin interupted herself, trying to make herself be heard over the din, "Shirou, Hela is actually Sakura. She stole the Tesseract from Loki's hideout. This is really important. I need your help." A note of desperation had crept into Rin's voice. She sounded closer to the edge than Shirou had ever heard her.

Rin hadn't meant to sound so desperate, but it had been one crisis after another, without pause. And added to that was her growing suspicion that she was trapped in this foreign world on her own, without Shirou. "Are you really ok?"

"Slow down. How.." Began Shirou when Banner growled "GRAHH!" as he slammed his head into the wall. Hard.

Steve reached towards the doctor, "Bruce, what's going on?" only to be flung across the room. The others turned and backed away as the doctor began to swell.

"Is this normal?" Shinji asked Natasha. She ignored him as Bruce smashed a conference room table and flung it at the window. The armored glass starred, and air began whistling out. His body had swollen to almost Hulk proportions on one side, but not so much on the other.

"Bruce, get control of yourself!" Natasha yelled to the doctor as she circled to one side, trying to get his attention without coming too close. Bruce trusted her – if she could get him to pay attention to her, maybe she could talk him down from whatever was going on in his head. At the same time, Thor circled from the other side and lunged for Bruce, enveloping him in a bear hug. Bruce tried to wrestle free, but Thor held tight.

Meanwhile Shirou's spell was still running, letting him see Bruce's mage circuits pulsing in time with... Shirou calmly spun and flung his rune lined trench coat over the scepter.

Immediately, Dr. Banner collapsed down onto the floor in relief.

"What was that?" Rogers asked as he and agent Coulson rushed over to Banner, helping him up to a seat. At the same time, a polymer goo oozed out along the cracks in the window, sealing them.

"Apparently Loki can use his link to the scepter to cast spells. I can't understand his magic, but he was doing something to Dr. Banner. The wards on my coat are blocking it for now."

"You have Loki?" Rin asked via the speakerphone that was now dangling off the end of the table. "He's been trying to get Barton here to come mount a rescue. I had to hypnotize him to convince him otherwise."

"You're not coming to rescue Loki? I though you were working together with him?" This was Thor. He was getting confused as to who was doing what. There were too many factions here.

"Loki had resources I needed, so yes, I worked with him. But that doesn't mean I like the guy. He's a creep. Though when you are done with him, there are a couple of experiments I would like to run on him. I really have to know how he manages to channel so much prana so quickly without using Mage circuits. My guess is he is a living noble phantasm."

"Actually, she DOES sound like my kind of girl," Tony nodded approvingly.

"Rin, you're getting side tracked. Where are you?" Shirou focused on what was important. He was used to working alone. His only social contacts were people like Issei, whom he would see once or twice a year. But now, he found he couldn't wait to see Rin again. It was an almost physical need.

"Right. My tracing spell puts Sakura in New York somewhere, so that's where I am headed."

"Wait, she fires off a tracking spell, and boom, she has the location just like that, and our best scientists are still struggling to get a fix?" Natasha looked incensed at the unfairness of it.

"New York?" Tony sat down at a workstation and ran some calculations at blistering speed, "It's possible."

"I'd appreciate a little help." Rin repeated in a more composed fashion as she scrambled to reassemble her public persona. "If Sakura triggers that Tesseract, I really don't know what could happen. Given her fondness for the Dead, we could have a zombie apocalypse."

"And you don't object to working with us?" Fury asked, trying to get a handle on this new variable.

"As long as our goals align, I got no reason not to. Agent Barton says that SHIELD is very competent." Rin paused, before adding, "Also, while I can put up with a lot morally gray nonsense, Shirou can't. If he is with you, I know that you are the good guys." Shirou couldn't help smiling at Rin's assertion, even if he wasn't certain that it was true anymore.

Tony nodded, definitely a smart woman: when it came to morality, it was clear that Leblanc was a simpleton (so was Rogers, though, so he was in good company). At least he appeared to be an idiot savant, if his understanding of the scepter and the Tesseract was for real.

Thor slowly considered everything that he had heard so far before grinning and slapping Shirou on the back approvingly. He was starting to like this Archer. Despite all the odd magics that he possessed, at heart Leblanc (or Shirou, as his woman called him) was a warrior in the Norse tradition. He wasn't scared of a good fight, and he was motivated by the love of a morally ambiguous woman.

Nick Fury looked at the rest of his team to see what their take on all this was. Tony summed it up. "It's the only lead we have."

Nick Fury nodded. He hated being so reactive, but during this whole crisis they had been on the back foot. "We'll meet you there. Agent Barton better be in good condition"

"He's healthy. I can't promise he'll be free of Loki's mind control. I can counter it somewhat, but I can't break it. Not when it's on another person person."

"Don't worry. I'll take care of the mind control." Natasha turned and stormed down to the holding cell. Rogers followed, just in case she needed medical assistance.

"Wait, where are you going?" Thor asked, a little slow on the uptake.

Stark and Banner didn't respond – they were busy tweaking their detection array so that it could verify Rin's assertion that the Tesseract was in New York. Neither did Fury: Now that he knew that Loki didn't have the Tesseract, he was fine with Agent Romanov emasculating him with a soup spoon.

"They're just going to talk to Loki." Shirou explained as he watched Tony work.

/\ b'D /\

"Sir, we are getting reports of disturbances all over the city." The Helicarrier had powered up the coast from Maryland, and was now just off of New York City.

"Bring it up on the monitors" Fury ordered.

Three of the biggest monitors switched to streaming footage from storefront security cameras, showing a street level view of a hoard of pasty gray cadavers in ripped clothing grabbing, biting and tearing at mid day shoppers.

"Zombies."

"The Dead. It's Hela." Thor elucidated.

"Are they like the ones in the movies, where if you get bitten you'll turn into a zombie also?" Natasha asked.

"No, a single bite won't do anything – they have to kill you for the zombification to take place." Shirou replied.

Fury nodded. "Suit up, gentlemen. We have our work cut out for us."

"I'm on it." Thor took off. Literally. He stepped out onto the observation platform outside the bridge, gave his hammer a whirl and disappeared into the sky. Stark slapped his wrist, and his armor rolled over him. Iron Man followed Thor a moment later.

The remaining Avengers – Captain America, Black Widow and Archer - ran out to the landing deck, to the closest quinjet.

/\ b'D /\

As the quinjet swooped over a boulevard lined with shops, Cap and Black Widow leaped out, engaging a group of zombies that were shambling down the street, attacking people as they cowered inside the businesses.

Natasha kicked one in the knee, but it only wobbled before lurching towards her again. A second zombie reached for her from the other side. Cap pulled it off and smashed it into the ground with his shield. It twitched feebly and lay still. Black Widow, meanwhile, tasered the other until it began to smoke.

"Ok, not as easy as I though it would be, but I can do this." Natasha eyed the crowd of zombies.

As the quinjet circled above, Shirou called to the pilot, "Hold here." He then drew back his bow and released an arrow, repeating the process as quickly as he could adjust his aim. Each arrow exploded on impact, scattering a dozen zombies in the space of a couple seconds and destroying several of them. Once the pack was spread out enough for Cap and Widow to deal with them one on one, Shirou yelled to the pilot again, "Put me down on top of that building." It was six stories tall and had a good a view of the zombies.

Shirou had just gotten set up on the corner when another bowman climbed up the fire escape. The two archers eyed each other, before the new guy spoke up, "You must be Shirou, the one Rin keeps comparing me to. Unfavorably."

"Hawkeye? I take it you shook off Loki's mind control?" Shirou kept his bow pointed down, but in the general vicinity of Clint.

"I think so. If not, you'll be the first to know." Hawkeye looked uncomfortable with this line of discussion. Not being certain of your own choices was not something anybody was comfortable with, but for a soldier, where split second decisions could mean the difference between life and death, it was down right frightening. "For now, let's get to it." Clint drew an arrow and shot a zombie.

Shirou nodded, taking up a position where he could keep the other archer in his peripheral vision.

Thunk, thunk thunk thunk.

Shirou let Hawkeye take the closer target, aiming for the ones further out.

"What's your range?" Clint asked, impressed.

"If I can see, I can hit it. Aim for the ones on the outskirts. Drive them towards the big open area there," Shirou pointed towards large avenue, where the other Avengers were mowing down a swarm of Dead.

They continued to shoot the Dead. Regular Arrows did very little, so both archers were using explosive tipped ones, and even then it took a direct hit to stop a zombie. Fortunately, direct hits were not a problem for either one.

"So you have been working with Rin? Where is she now?"

"That Japanese girl? Not certain. We split up once we got to New York." Thunk, BOOM. Another zombie's head exploded. "And I wouldn't say that I'm working with her. I don't know what her goals are, other than stopping this invasion. The whole trip here she just interrogated me on current events. She's a little scary." Clint wasn't one for conversation, but Loki had turned his mind inside out, and he wasn't certain if he was himself, "How's Natasha? Did she end up joining with the Avengers?"

"Yeah. She's a little scary too."

Clint nodded, firing off several more arrows. "As global threat go, I'm not impressed. This is target practice." While the zombies were plentiful, most weren't that fast or that smart. As long as their arrows didn't run out, they were easy pickings. And that didn't take into account that Thor and the other Avengers smashing through them in hand to hand.

/\ b'D /\

Thor was having a great time. This made sense. Smashing the living dead was something that he was familiar with. He waded into a thicket of them, laying about with his hammer, each strike destroying one or more of the abominations. One grabbed him from behind, but he pulled it off as it tried to bite into his bicep and hit it Mjolnir. It shattered into itty bitty pieces.

Good times.

/\ b'D /\

"I hate fighting these things!" Tony complained as he repulsored another zombie, blasting a whole through its rotting chest cavity. "It feels too much like shooting real people"

"It could be worse." Captain decapitated a pair of Dead with his shield, "They could be shooting back."

Natasha was further down the street, distracting the zombies so that they wouldn't swarm over Thor. Without any working nerves, the Dead were not susceptible to most of her martial arts, but she could still take them out if she worked at it. Even a zombie needed to have an intact spine to walk.

Fortunately, there were no recent graveyards close by, so Hela had a limited supply of dead to play with.

But just as it looked like they were getting the upper hand, a tower of light burst from the top floor of the Stark building, ripping the sky asunder. A vortex formed at the edges as air was sucked up.

Out of the rip in the sky came a swam of flying attack ships. Most were small, one or two person fliers, but a couple of giant flying leviathans bristling with teeth and gun emplacements buried in their flesh followed the first wave. These ranged in size between football field sized to one monster that was half a mile long and darkened the sky.

"Oh, crap. I knew it was too easy." Iron man veered quickly down a side street as one of the leviathans flung itself towards him.

The Chitauri were here.

/\ b'D /\

"All batteries, open fire on those... things" Director Fury commanded as a pair of sky whales charged the Helicarrier.

"Sir, we can't use missiles – we can't get lock on. We'll have to use the AA guns."

"Do it." That was not good. The Helicarrier only had a handful of turrets. Like most modern warships, it primarily relied on missiles. But if the enemy didn't have a heat signature, or if the radar profile didn't match a known aircraft, the missile would disregard the target. Clearly an oversight, given SHIELD's mission.

Fury scanned over what resources he had available. "Get all the birds into the air. Tell them to switch their short range missiles to proximity fuse." That should give them some cover. "Banner," he glanced at the mousy scientist. As tempting as it was to grab him by the scruff of his neck, punch him in the face, and then toss him down onto a Leviathan, the Hulk was too much of a wild card. "Banner, get to your quarters."

The Helicarrier rocker as a barrage of fire from a passing leviathan raked it.

"Hard about, let's give them a fight, boys."

/\ b'D /\

Captain America had just finished off a pair of zombies when a blast of energy hit him from the side. He managed to roll with it, getting his shield up to deflect part of the attack, but he was still monumentally wobbly as a pair of heavily armored humanoids leaped off of a flier and raced towards him, and a third stayed back to reload the cannon. The two uglies were just a few paces away when a swarm of lightning bolts hit them from the side, lifting them into the air and throwing their smoking carcasses across the street.

"Thanks, Thor." Steve glanced to the side, only to do a double take. There was no Thor. In his place stood a petite Asian woman.

"Eyes up front, soldier!" She snapped.

"Yes, ma'am!" Cap called out as he turned back in time to roll out of the way of another concussive blast before throwing his shield through the last attacker. "You must be Rin," he nodded to the woman.

"And you must pay attention. We're in the middle of a situation here!" Rin scanned the sky anxiously for more attackers before darting towards the Stark building. "Follow me – the Tesseract is at the top of that building."

/\ b'D /\

Shirou found himself alone on the rooftop again: Hawkeye had been quickly running out of arrows, so the next time a single person flier came into range he leaped onto its back, shooting the Chitauri pilot as he did. He steered the flier towards a pair of other Chitauri, using their own weapon against them.

Shirou provided covering fire, knocking out flier that tried to get on Clint's tail. Before he could do any more, he had to duck and roll as another Chitauri figured out who was responsible for blasting them out of the air. He dived across the roof as chunks of concrete were ripped out of it. He flipped over the edge, down onto the fire escape.

The flier circled around to line up a shot on the red headed archer, but he was faster – he drew and fired, putting a Hruntig through it.

As the aircraft spun to the ground, trailing black smoke, he jumped back up to the roof edge and looked around. "Hawkeye, go north - Black Widow just ran behind that big church with a bunch of Chitauri chasing her." Archer looked around, but he wasn't certain what targets to prioritize. He shot down a couple more fliers, but they were small fry, and probably meaningless in the greater scheme of things.

It was almost like this one battle was a parable for his entire life up to now. Small, meaningless victories as he stumbled from one conflict to the next.

Shirou recreated Mjolnir and flung himself up onto a 20 story office building, to try to get some perspective.

/\ b'D /\

Iron man swooped between buildings, engaged in an aerial dual with a pair of large Chitauri gunships.

"Stark, get your ass up here, we're taking heavy fire," Director Fury snarled over the radio. There was static on the line as the Helicarrier had had to reroute power.

"You're going to have to wait your turn - I'm getting swarmed here." Another flier had joined the chase, flying above the buildings to direct the ones directly on Stark's tail.

He banked around a skyscraper and down an alley, to find himself heading out into the bay.

And right towards the largest Leviathan of them all. It was hanging over the Statue of Liberty, a pair of massive multi-cannon turrets on either side of its head pointing directly towards him.

"Oh, boy!" He swerved as they opened fire, but even glancing hits from that large a cannon were enough to knock the armor about. Tony zig zagged as he headed down towards the water, hoping the Chitauri tracking system would lose him in the ocean waves.

SHTOOM.

A bolt of energy from one of the cannons hit him in the arm, knocking him off course.

SHTOOM.

SHTOOM.

SHTOOM.

The armor took another hit, knocking one of the boot engines off line and sending him into a spin. He pulled out jut above the water .

"I need some help!"

The cannons continued to pound away.

END

Omake – cut scene

"Banner. With me. Now!" Fury leaped down to the the lower level of the command room and dashed out onto the observation platform.

Bruce Banner ran out just as a leviathan that looked like a cross between an eel and a dragon passed below them. Fury grabbed the mousy scientist by his shirt collar, yanking him over the side. "That thing down there? It eats little children. After it's done here, it's going to go to Calcutta and eat those children who you were rescuing."

And dropped him.

The THUMP that landed on the sky eel was much too loud to have been made by a 95 lb nerd.


	6. Chapter 6

Tony zig zagged as he flew just above the water water, hoping the Chitauri tracking system would lose him in the ocean waves.

SHTOOM.

A bolt of energy from the Leviathan smashed into the water just in front of him.

"A hand here would be appreciated."

The water did confuse the enemy gunners, and Iron Man was able to maneuver off to the side, strafing the Leviathan's flank a he flew at just the water level, the spray clouding his visor. The thousands of tiny legs hanging from the Leviathan's underside squirmed in pain.

But the monster had turrets implanted into its flank as well, and those were spraying poorly aimed fire down towards him. Most just hit the ocean, sending more water spraying over Iron man, but enough was on target that Tony had to redirect more and more energy to his repulsor shield to keep from getting fried.

"I see it." It was Shirou's voice.

"I am the bone of my sword

Steel is my body and fire is my blood

I have created over a thousand blades..."

He traced Mjolnir.

"Unaware of loss, Nor aware of gain

Have withstood pain to create many weapons"

He converted Mjolnir into an arrow

"Yet, those hands will never accomplish anything

My whole life has been unlimited blade works"

Then he broke it.

A moment later, an arrow as bright as the sun flew from the top of a building in midtown, arcing through the sky as it flashed between skyscrapers before finally impacting on the leviathan with blinding force.

The explosion knocked Iron Man into the water, and momentarily overloaded his visor.

"What was that?" Tony spluttered as he reignited his thrusters, lifting himself back into the sky. The leviathan was nowhere to be seen, but there was a cloud of smoke and ash that had been flung in a cone away from the city.

"That was an shaped explosive device detonating with the force equivalent to 16 kilotons of TNT." His AI, Jarvis, replied in its usual cultured British tones.

Tony groaned "Oh, great. I've been mocking somebody that can fire off nuclear weapons from his bow."

/\ b'D /\

The explosion was directed away from the city, but its violence still broke windows on the ocean side buildings and caused the combatants to pause momentarily.

Captain America had just run up to Stark tower (following Rin), so the bulk of the building protected him from the blinding flash. "Stark, what's your situation?"

"Much better then it was 5 seconds ago. And if Rin Tohsaka is more powerful than THAT, she's going to be a HULK sized pain in the butt."

Rin, who despite being far more petite than the Hulk, DID indeed share some character traits with him, stopped and growled. "Who says I'm that powerful?"

"Tony, assist the Helicarrier," Captain America ordered, "Thor, can you slow down the flood of Chitauri coming through the wormhole?"

"I'm on it." Thor flung himself skyward.

"Well?" Rin insisted. She was NOT a 'pain in the ass', and she would kick anybodies butt that claimed she was.

"Your friend Leblanc, or Shirou, said that you were a better magus than he was."

"I AM a better magus. I have a better grasp of magical theory, and I can cast a much broader range of spells. But magic isn't about blowing things up. It's about the search for truth. Shirou, on the other hand, is only good at one thing – being a superhero. And at that he's in a league of his own. I can't compare. Nobody can, not even you and your spandex clad friends."

Steve Rogers raised an eyebrow at this impassioned praise coming from the woman who a moment ago seemed like she was angry at the whole world. It humanized her. "We can't take the elevator, and we'll never reach the top with the stairs." He looked around. "We need to take down a flier intact." He pointed to a flight of three rounding the corner.

Rin nodded, and as Captain America flung his shield to carom off of the heads off the two lead pilots, she sprayed the rest with Gandr, making sure the gunners wouldn't cause trouble either.

"Ok, up we go."

Their captured flier must have taken a couple of Gandr shots to the engine, because it struggled to take off and then limped slowly upwards. Rin Tohsaka shuffled to one side , and pretended to be engrossed in watching for attacking Chitauri while Cap piloted the craft. It was like being stuck in an elevator together with a complete stranger. "So," Rin finally broke down, glancing awkwardly at Captain America, "You've working with Leblanc. How's he doing?" she asked tentatively.

Steve Rogers smirked slightly. She sounded so much like the girls from back in his day (like Peggy). He almost replied 'He is eating well. And he wears a coat when he goes out.'. Instead, he said, "Leblank, or Shirou, I guess, has been a dependably ally. I like working with him." Steve paused, and then gave the highest accolade he could, "He's a good man."

Rin nodded and looked off in to the distance, "Is he eating well?"

/\ b'D /\

"We have damage on the third and fourth thrust nacelle. We are starting to lose lift on the right side," the technical officer reported. The main lights were out, and they were operating under the red emergency lighting.

"Tony, what's your status?"

"I'm on my way. I had a couple of bogies on my tail, but Hawkeye and Natasha cleared them off."

Iron Man swooped up and opened up with both repulsors. The beams flashed from his palms in pulses, hitting several flier and driving off the others. But a sky whale was coming up on the stern of the flying warship. Natasha and Clint swooped by in a stolen gunship, strafing it.

As Iron man turned to engage the leviathan, alarms began to blare on the helicarrier's bridge. "Somebody has opened up the containment chamber." The woman on Fury's left switched the monitor to show the now empty containment chamber. It just caught Loki leaving the room.

"Coulson, get a team and direct him off the helicarrier," Fury knew there was no way that they had enough manpower available to stop Loki while fighting a war, but if he could get him off the helicarrier ASAP, he could contain the damage that he would inflict.

Coulson and the five SHIELD agents met Loki and doctor Banner as they walked out onto the helicarrier's main landing deck.

"Why hello, agent. Did you know a containment room build to hold brute muscle really is not very effective against magic?" Loki held up his (newly regained) staff, and a blue field enveloped him. His illusion magic quite skillfully covered over the purple and green bruises that covered the left side of his face.

Dr Banner nodded amiably at his side, "You should put the weapons down, or somebody is going to get hurt."

The agents ignored that rather reasonable advice and opened fire on Loki. As the bullets bounced off of the blue protective field, one of the ricochets hit Banner, who collapsed with a scream.

"Oh, now you've done it" Loki smirked as a pulse of energy sent the agents flying. He then turned to his mind controlled scientist. Except it wasn't Dr. Banner, it was the Hulk. "So, is Hulk ready to smash whoever the Hel it was that stole MY CHITORI!" Loki voice rose as the rage that he had been bottling up finally leaked out.

Hulk was holding his head, but his mind was still shackled to the trickster god. He grabbed Loki, and ran down the length of the landing deck, finally leaping for Stark Tower as he reached the edge.

/\ b'D /\

"Sakura why are you doing this?" Rin stepped off of the stolen Chitauri flier and through a smashed window into the top floor of Stark tower. The office space was wrecked – desks and papers were strewn all over. Standing in the middle, directing the vortex through a huge hole in the ceiling was Hela, aka Sakura. In her hand was the Tesseract,

Captain America flanked Rin, in case one of Sakura's mooks was hiding off to the side.

"Why? For power. All my life, I have been a tool, a weapon for other people to control. Well, I'm dead now, and now I will be the one in charge. I will be controlling the weapons, thank you very much. And everybody will acknowledge me as their true mistress."

"What about Shirou?" Rin played her trump card.

"What about Shirou? I arrived on this lousy planet fifty years ago. I've had to struggle to survive, to maintain my sanity. And where was Shirou? Nowhere. And where was he in the previous reality? He abandoned me to die there as well!"

"He's here now. He's out there," Rin pointed out towards where the Avengers were fighting the Chitauri and the Dead.

"Well, good for him," Sakura snapped, but her voice had lost some of its conviction. She looked conflicted.

Before she could say anything else, though, the Hulk landed with a THUNK, depositing Loki in front of her. "Give me the Tesseract!" the staff glowed, trying to dominate Sakura's will.

Sakura laughed uproariously and sent a spear of ice at Loki from her free hand. "Always the little boys with their demands." Rin had to admit that Sakura looked a lot more relaxed and happy than she ever had when she was alive.

Loki dived out of the way as chunks of ice stabbed into the floor where he had been moments ago. He rolled over and unleashed a blast from his staff, but Saukra gestured with Tesseract, and the blast went astray.

"You're like Shinji, thinking you are better than everybody else." The temperature plummeted, and frost covered all surface, "But let tell you a secret. Everybody dies"

As Captain America moved to intervene, the Hulk lashed out at him. Cap managed to block with his shield, but the force of the blow still threw him across the room.

"Fight off the mind control!" Rin cast hypnosis on the green behemoth.

The hulk smiled, "Who said Hulk not free? Hulk like smashing." He looked Rin up and down, "Hulk like you too." He broke into a big green leer.

Before Hulk could take a step forwards, Rin unleashed a storm of Gander. So many black spheres impacted on him that the Hulk looked gray.

"Ok, Hulk not like you anymore." The green behemoth dry heaved, "Hulk feel like Banner!"

Meanwhile, Sakura was curb stomping Loki, but at the cost of using the Tesseract. As she did, the vortex began to oscillate, getting bigger and smaller as she drew the Tesseract's power away from it.

Captain America approached cautiously, "Sakura, I don't know you, but is this who you really want to be? Angry, and letting other people define who you are?"

"No, that's why I need the Tesseract."

"Power is not the same as character. Every person is born with the power to stand up for who they are. You don't need the power to crush the Earth to do that. You just need to find that strength inside you."

Sakura looked torn, before replying. "Maybe in another world, I could have been that person." Ice stalagmites spared up from the floor towards Cap. Just because she was more open with her feelings did not make her any less angry.

/\ b'D /\

Thor unleashed a storm of wind and lightning into the vortex, blocking the opening so that any Chitauri that wanted to exit would get struck by lightning and get thrown into the vortex walls by the winds.

With the flood of new Chitauri slowed, the other Avengers were starting to thin their numbers. Shirou reinforced his eyes and looked at what was going on in Stark tower.

It was not good.

He projected Mjolnir and threw himself into the air.

/\ b'D /\

"Hulk will pound you," the green behemoth pushed himself upright, "then Hulk will pound you the other way." He grimaced a smile at Rin as he adjusted the ripped remains of his trousers.

"Blitzvohang!" Rin was beginning to panic - the lightning bolts were barely slowing the Hulk down. He was huge and angry. His entire being was destruction. There was no way to finesse him.

Rin looked around for help, But there wasn't anybody. On the other side of the office space, Loki and Captain America had formed an impromptu alliance to fend off Sakura, who was nearly as bad as the Hulk.

THOOM

The Hulk staggered as something smashed into his back. "Thor?" He turned, "You're not Thor."

Behind him was Shirou, looking furious. He didn't say a word as he projected Kanshou and Bakuya and reinforced himself more than he ever had before. This thing had the same magic as Banner. It smelled identical, except much more intense. But it didn't matter who Hulk was. Hulk was threatening the woman he loved, and there could only be one answer to that.

When he attacked, it was with a speed and ferocity unlike before. With each blow, his falchions shattered from the force, and he had to he project them anew.

But Hulk was the Hulk.

The swords left light scratches on is skin, but did not penetrate enough to draw blood.

"Your swords itch!" Hulk swung a wild hay-maker at Shirou. Despite his mass he moved with remarkable speed. But Shirou was faster, ducking under the punch and projecting Caliburn. But that was no better, leaving just a thin line of red on the green skin. He switched to Durandel, but that just bounced off of Hulk's arm. He ducked again and projected Mjolnir, slamming **that** into the green behemoth's side, but without Thor's upper body strength, it did nothing more that push the Hulk back a step.

"Hulk smash puny sword man." Hulk was getting frustrated, and that meant that he was getting stronger. Even a brushing blow from his body was enough to send Shirou spinning.

"Shirou, his powers are magical." Rin had retreated to safety and had cast a diagnostic spell on the Hulk, looking for any weaknesses. "His mage crest!."

Shirou nodded, projecting his Kiritsugu bone sword and stabbed the crude tip into Hulk's shoulder.

"Agghh!" Banner collapsed to the floor, holding the shallow scratch.

"What did you do?" Captain America called out as the other battle took a pause.

"I severed his connection to his Mage crest." Shirou turned to Sakura and said simply: "You have to stop. You are hurting a lot of people." He wasn't certain what else to do. This was Sakura. He couldn't attack her.

Sakura's expression softened a little as she considered Shirou's statement. She took a step towards him.

And kicked him, planting her foot in his chest to send him across the room. Before the others could respond, she raised the Tesseract in her fist and was lifted into the air, spinning around to land onto a Leviathan.

As Shirou staggered back to his feet, Rin explained, "Sakura's an alternate reality version of his dead ex-girlfriend. Also dead, sort of."

Rin stepped close to Shirou "Are you ok?" she asked, reaching out to touch where Sakura had hit him. He grimaced slightly in pain.

"I should be asking you that." Shirou enveloped here in a hug.

Rin had not been expecting something so out of character for the red headed idiot. She stood there for a moment, flabbergasted, her brain running through different scenarios – push him away, act surprised, act offended, act the school idol… "I missed you." She wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his shoulder.

"I hate to interrupt, but Hela's heading for the wormhole!" Captain America called out, "we need to get to the Helicarrier." Shiru stepped away from Rin, but he couldn't look away from her quite yet. Rin was no better.

Loki took that as his cue to fade from view while the sneaking was good. Literally. He shifted into transparency, becoming nothing more than a heat distorted ripple.

Shtoomp!

Loki snapped back into clarity, a burnt patch on his backside.

"Don't try that again, these guns are quite good at targeting invisible people." Banner was holding a discarded Chitauri rifle. He looked haggered, but despite his typical nihilism, he wasn't quite ready to give up yet.

At the same time, Captain America interrupted the reunion. "You two, we're not done yet."

He led them to the Chitauri gunship that had brought him and Rin up here.

/\ b'D /\

The flier was crowded with the five of them on board, but it made it up to the Helicarrier, where they were met by Iron man. "Hello. You must be Rin Tohsaka, the magus prodigy." He had his helmet off, so he could talk face to face. He stuck out his hand.

Rin gave him her patented 'school idol' smile as she gave the hand a quick shake. Tony gave a quick glance at Shirou standing by her side, trying to gauge his chances (Some old habits die hard).

"People, we need to retrieve the Tesseract." Cap directed the Avengers to keep moving. Banner staggered inside, as he struggled with the nausea and other after effects of throwing off Loki's mind control. Rin had given him a dose of hypnosis to help, but as a regular human, he was feeling the strain.

Shirou joined Captain America in surveying the battlefield while Tony updated them, "Yeah. Right." He pointed up towards the portal in the sky, "Hela was delayed taking apart the storm that Thor had blocked the vortex with, but it's down now, and she's heading up."

Steve nodded and tapped his radio link, "Nick, you getting this? How far can we chase her?"

Nick Fury joined the gathering on the flight deck a few moments later. He looked as calm and controlled as always, despite the Helicarrier having taken a serious beating. "It depends on what's up there – does it lead to outer space, or an alternate dimension? The Helicarrier needs air to fly."

As if to punctuate the comment, the Helicarrier's engines strained, lifting it as fast as possible. Tony frowned, "that doesn't sound good. I'm going to go baby the engines," and raced over to the side.

About the same time, another Chitauri flier limped over, disgorging Hawkeye and Black Widow. Hawkey quickly joined Shirou and Captain America, using his cybernetically enhanced vision to try to find Hela's flier, "She has a big lead on us."

Steve nodded. "The vortex storm is gone, and she's sealing the gate. We're not going to make it in time." The circle of the gate was barely visible now.

"Archer, can you make the shot?" Fury asked.

Shirou projected a bow, an arrow forming on it as he raised it. He tracked something that the others couldn't even see.

Agent Coulson watched in fascination. This was his first time watching magic from up close. One day, maybe he would be able to do this as well. Even Thor was curious to see this foreign magic. Natasha, on the other hand, hung a few paces back with Nick Fury, a pensive look on her face.

Shirou held the bow aimed at what appeared to be empty sky.

"Can he even see her at this distance?" Steve asked.

Rin shushed him.

Shirou lowered his bow, "We need to get closer. I can't get a good enough shot at this range." A palpable disappointment radiated from all the onlookers.

Rin leaned in and whispered "You didn't take the shot because it's Sakura?"

Shirou shrugged, but before he could say anything, Nick Fury replied, "The Helicarrier is already going as fast as it can. The portal will be gone before we get there."

"Maybe not." Thor stepped forward and raised his fist. Within moments, black clouds boiled out of the once empty sky, and a gale force wind whipped up, pouring in from behind the Helicarrier, pushing them forwards at an extra 200 mph.

"And I'll deal with the portal," Rin started to chant in German. A purple light limned her, and the portal darkened, growing more pronounced again. She gasped, staggering from the strain. Shirou gave her a worried look, but he didn't dare touch her for fear of interrupting her spell.

"We're catching up," Fury commented. "How long can you keep this?"

"Long enough." Thor grunted, "Where is Loki?"

Everybody looked around. There was no Loki, but there were two Agent Coulsons, one next to Fury, and the other on the other side of Black Widow.

"Hey, what? He's the fake!" both Coulsons pronounced, pointing at the other.

Without wasting a moment, Fury pulled out a revolver and tapped his watch twice. After giving it a quick glance, he turned and shot the right agent Coulson in the leg.

"Aarh!" As the man collapsed, his image wavered turning back to Loki.

"How?" Thor asked

"I put a tracker into his tuna sandwich."

"Remind me not to invite you to dinner." Thor turned back to controlling the storm. Loki wasn't going to die from a little scratch to the leg, so it was all fine. Wanting to hit Loki was a very normal reaction, after all.

The dark rim of the gate grew closer as the Helicarrier raced upwards. They could just barely make out the speck that was the fleeing Chitauri on the other side of the tunnel.

"I see birds up there!" Thor pronounced.

"Those aren't birds, but they are flying through air." Rin added. Moments later the Helicarrier entered the ring. There was a moment of disjunction, and then they were flying under an alien sky. Below, the ground was littered with all sorts of mechanical refuse – it was like the planet was one giant recycling center. In the distance, another portal opened up momentarily and dumped some junk before closing up.

"This planet is scarred with opening or potential openings," Rin said, "Sakura must be using it as a transportation hub."

"There she is," Shirou pointed. "She's heading for that portal ring. I don't know if we can catch her in time "

"I have got a more important question: How do we get back?" Fury asked.

"I marked our portal. And the aether here is so badly thinned that I should be able to reopen it easily, at least for the next couple of days." Rin let her spell fade with a sigh. Shirou squeezed her hand and gave her an encouraging smile. Now wasn't the time for anything more.

"We won't need days," Hawkeye pointed to the Chitauri. "We'll be close enough to attack in a few minutes."

Steve nodded in agreement – they would be in range of the Chitauri before Hela reached the other gate. Barely. "We'll only get one shot at this, so don't miss. Get Iron man. We need everybody that can attack at a distance ready when we get close enough."

The Helicarrier bucked and shuddered as it flew, surrounded by it own storm clouds, winds roiling around it. Rin paced the deck anxiously. As she passed the by Natasha, she noticed Black Widow's fixed stare

"Hello, I'm Rin. It's nice to see another woman on the team," Rin conveniently forgot that she was not technically a part of the Avengers. If Shirou was, she was.

"Black Widow," Natasha replied, ignoring the proffered hand as she looked ahead, "Thank you for freeing Clint." Rin glanced towards where the other woman was looking – it was more at the clump of Avengers at the front than at the fleeing Hela.

Rin lowered her hand "You're not a very trusting person, are you?"

Black Widow glanced at Rin, "I appreciate what you did. I owe you. But now is not the time for chit-chat." Her eyes flicked back towards the front.

"You wish that you had been the one to rescue him."

"We have history," Natasha stated, as if that explained everything. "He.. helped me when I was in a bad place. When I was not a good person. But instead of turning me in, he trusted me, helped me become human again. I owe him. So yes, I wish I had had the chance to take that red ink off of my ledger."

Rin peered at Natasha, "I was like that too for a long time, trying to be rational about my interactions. I almost messed my life up badly. There's no shame to being in love.

"You do not understand. This isn't something childish like that." Natasha walked away.

"The Chitauri are turning back!"

"Tony, we need you up here!" Stave called out.

Iron man roared out of the second Helicarrier lift pod, slamming through the Chitauri formation, taking two of the gunships out with his repulsors. Captain America deflected the blast from another flier away from Thor as Hawkey shot a Chitari that touched down on the Helicarrier. "Keep them clear of Thor – he needs to concentrate on the storm!'

Rin scanned the sky. "Shirou, Sakura's changed course – she's using the cover of the battle to open another portal. We won't reach her in time!" As if to punctuate her statement, the engine that Iron Man had been bracing began to whine and smoke.

A quinjet tried to take off, but the wind from the storm was too much for it – the aircraft quivered and skidded back down on the landing pad.

A large Chitauri gunship made a pass, strafing the Helicarrier's deck and dropping a pair of heavily armored warriors, who promptly raced towards Thor.

Captain America and Natasha engaged one, and Hawkeye pin cushioned the other, with Fury giving it the coup de grace by shooting it in the head as it stumbled towards him.

"Shirou, end it." Rin put a hand on the redheads arm.

"Are you certain?"

"It's the only way."

Shirou nodded and created a huge black bow. He drew it back, an arrow forming on it. It was a long shot. And he was shooting Sakura. But it wasn't his Sakura. Hela had killed a lot of people. But still.

Shirou glanced at Rin. She stood facing him. This must be difficult for her as well, but she stayed with him, supporting him anyway. As long as Rin was there, he didn't have to worry. Shirou let all the tension ease out as he focused on the shot.

Iran Man took out the last of his immediate opponents and locked on to the fleeing Hela. He glanced back to see Shirou lining up his shot, "you know, that's almost a mile straight up." Tony volunteered, in case it wasn't obvious that it was an impossible shot. He cranked up his thrusters, poured on the power, trying to reach Hela before she could slip all the way into the portal.

Rin grabbed a transmitter from Agent Coulson's ear, "Just stay out of the line of fire!"

Shirou released.

The arrow shot up so fast that is sent out a shock wave. It snapped past Tony, making him wobble.

A moment passed, then another. "She dropped the Tesseract. Over there!"

Tony veered like a shark, diving before Shirou even finished speaking.

"Jarvis, give me radar and the spectrophotometer array." Tony swooped out.

"I see it. I got it!"


	7. Chapter 7

epilogue

"So is Hela still alive?" Thor asked. The Helecarrier had hightailed it back to earth, over Rin's muttered protests that they should explore the portal world. But when Fury had offered that she stay there on her own, she had declined.

Shirou nodded. "My arrow hit her in the arm. Chances are, we haven't seen the last of her." It wasn't clear if he was happy or upset about that. He smiled as Rin placed a cup of coffee in front of him and sat down next to him, leaning slightly onto his shoulder in exhaustion. Shirou put his arm around her. They still hadn't had a chance to talk about where their relationship, but it almost felt like back in high school, like the intervening years had never happened.

Most of the Avengers team was assembled in the conference room, with Director Fury sitting on the table, looking relaxed for the first time. "So, what's your plan?"

"I like this world. I can make a real difference here, help a lot of people. And there really isn't much for me back home." Just a downward spiral of struggling to help people, and getting mired in more and more morally ambiguous conflicts. There wasn't anything like SHIELD or the Avengers there.

Shirou had always worked alone, but he was discovering how much more he could accomplish when he was part of a team. He glanced at the other Avengers, letting his gaze linger on Rin. "And Rin is fascinated by that interplanetary portal that Hela used."

And unlimited mana was nice too.

Thor nodded, turning to Director Fury "And you are certain that you won't get into any trouble for letting me take the Tesseract back to Asgard?"

"Oh, I most certainly will," Fury smiled, "but after stopping the Chitauri, I have enough political capital to have the entire UN security council kiss my hairy ass. I might as well put it to good use." He appeared to be relishing the prospect of a good fight, "But your girlfriend better make good on your promise of training up a magus corp." He pointed at Shirou as he said this last bit.

Rim smiled, "You don't need to worry about that. And I think we will be visiting Asgard as well, to do a little research on that Bifrost bridge portal."

Shirou quirked an eyebrow at Rin deciding their mutual itinerary so casually. Especially since it would be solely to benefit her research

Rin squirmed awkwardly, blushing, "What? I think it will be a great place for a honeymoon."

END.


	8. Chapter 8

Epilogue II

(because it's Marvel, and there is ALWAYS a stinger after the credits roll)

It was several weeks later.

Shirou started awake. Rin was still asleep, breathing regularly, but something had changed.

A part of his mind, the part that Structurally Grasped any weapon that he saw, was finally at rest. It worked so autonomously that Shirou hadn't realized that up until now it had been grinding away, worrying at a complex problem. Shirou had very little control over it, but usually it did its thing so quickly that he didn't really notice.

It felt very relaxing to have it stop. Shirou was groggy enough not to worry about about what meant. He glanced at Rin and smiled sleepily. All was good. They would figure it out tomorrow. Shirou pulled the blanket up (Rin was hogging all the covers again) and snuggled up to Rin's naked back.

/\ b'D /\

The sky was a blood red color, with giant gears hanging suspended from it in place of the sun and the stars. From the ground jutted swords by the hundreds.

Off to one side, in the shadow of a pair of swords, was the Tesseract.


End file.
